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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



PLAIN WORDS 



TO THE 



/Vmerican 



People. 



BY 

J. J. MITCHELL. 






PLAIN WORDS 



TO THE 



AMERICAN PEOPLE 



BY 



/ 



J. MITCHELL 



EntfrrMi arrordin- to A> I of Congre??, August H'l, A. i:>. Lo^i, 

by J, J. M iTctiEi.!,, in the office of the Librariau 

of Cuur^'Cf?, at Wa^hingtou, D. C. 



W, n , 7^1 E L R O S E , P U B I I 

E S K K I U G E , K A xN S A 
1 S 9 4 . 



?s--x 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



** Of making books there is no end." So said 
Solomon centuries ag-o ; hence the absence of 
necessity for apolog-y for the production of 
this one. 

In "Pr^ATN Words to the American Peo- 
pi,E," the author has endeavored to set before 
them, in the briefest manner possible, some 
facts, which affect the well being- of mankind. 

I have been inspired only by a spirit of fair- 
ness in the elucidation of such subjects as I 
have treated in this work, and the judg-ment 
and criticism of such number of my fellow men 
as shall read it will be the measure of how well 
I have succeeded. 

That life only is worth living- which rises in 
contemplation of a broader vision of mankind 
than self, and devotion to the institutions among- 
men which ameliorate their condition. Worthy 
of all honor are the men who framed the temple 
of g-overnment, and laid deep and wide the 
g-ranite foundation of this Republic. In con- 
templation of their g-enius, man rises to the 
reg^ion of adoration. 

The rich and the poor ; Wealth, its legitimate 
uses, and conscienceless abuses ; Remedies sug- 
gested to protect the people from corporate 



iv Author's Pkeface. 



greed; A proposed ii-liange of y;uvefnnient con- 
sidered : 

Free g^overnijient and law to be laaiuj ained, 
as the onlj' condition under which man can 
exist as a social being ; A prevailing- custom, 
detritnental to the best interests of the public : 

The relation of labor to capital ; The condi- 
tion of the laboiing people; a'ld some things 
that afl'ect their prosperity : 

('ornbines, strii^es and riots, the result of 
jealous antag'onism between natural fricrids ; 
Ability of the toiling- masses to enact what 
laws we desire, and the sug-g-estion of needed 
leg-islation to protect our people and i^erpetuate 
our country : 

The perilous condition (jf the nation and its 
conditional future — are the principal S(d>j'^''t'i 
con-:,idcred iri this work. 

That universal approbatioti will be g"iven to 
the work is not expected, and it is beyond the 
hope of the least exacting- to suppose that 
mistakes will not appear. That the subjects 
considered can o\\\y be sketched in this limited 
space, is ap]oarent to every one ; and the reader 
is left to follow out, on log-ical lines of thoug-ht, 
conclusions. 

The Author, 

J. J, MITCH.FvTvTv 
Eskridgr, Ivansas, 

July igl/i, iSg^. 



iistrDE^ix:. 



PAGB 

Two Conditions of Human Life 9 

Education— Wealth, 1* 

Means of Wealth, . . ... . . .15 

Boards of Trade — Stock Yards Co., ... 18 

Necessity of Massed Wealth, . . . • .31 
Equality of Men and Equal Division of Property, 3;] 
Wealth Could Not be Equally Divided Without De 

struction, "^1 

Education a Factor of Wealth 4(5 

Antagonism Between Capital and Labor, ... 48 
Equal Division of Property: Eesults and Conse- 
quences, '-^'"^ 

Anarchy, -68 

Liberty, ''O 

Present Conditions, "^^ 

Nations Likened to Families, 81 

Making of Our Laws, 83 

Our Laws Compromise laws, 86 

The Purity and Goodness of Our Laws Depeud on 

the Purity and Goodness of the People, . . 00 
Danger of Overthrow of Government, . 

Laws Never Enacted, 

Combines, Capital and Labor, l-^j- 

Demagogues: The Enemy of Labor, , . .105 

One-Man Authority, 10^ 

Personal Habits of Laborers, 113 

Pullman, 115 

Labor Should Scorn Paternalism and Hypocrisy, . lit) 

Laws to be Enacted l^"*" 

Our Country's Conditional Future, . . . .118 

Self Preservation, .124 

Infldelity and Deism, 129 

Bellamy: "Looking Backward," .... 135 



(5) 



PLAIN WORDS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 



HE first record of man, running away- 
back into the earliest twilight of ex- 
istence, shows that the very first one 
was a nabob, and, consequently, a liar, a 
deceiver, and avaricious to the last degree. 
Adam was a rich man ; possessed the whole 
earth and lorded it over all animal life, and 
yet he bartered his soul for a big red apple. 
As a natural consequence, his first son was a 
murderer, and true to the natural instincts 
of his father, justified his deviltry with the 
same specious sort of reasoning — "Am I my 
brother's keeper?" The only material dif- 
ference between Adam and his son was, 
Adam, though rich beyond calculation, would 
hazard life eternal for an additional apple, 
while Cain, though rich enough, would kill 
his brother, because, through his poverty, 
he seemed to have found favor with the 
Almighty. 

The Almighty broke up the nabob nest of 

(T) 



8 PlvAlN WOEDS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 

both Adam and Cain and drove them out 
of rich men's gardens to scratch around 
amongst the briars and stumps for a living, 
like other people. But in spite of the 
Almighty, Cain's and Adam's posterity mul- 
tiplied and filled the earth with millionaires 
by the same old paternal methods of de- 
ception, falsehood, avaricious overreaching, 
crime and murder. Avarice has always 
massed wealth over the tombs of the poor's 
misfortune, who, Abel li'ke, come to the 
altar with his best offering, in simple faith, 
desiring the approval of heaven, and trusting 
in the loyalty and love of a brother, but who, 
Abner like, "died as the fool dieth." Av- 
arice has neither conscience iior heart, and 
\Abeii it fastens itself on the heart of a man 
it so transforms him that the man becomes 
a monster, and greed becomes his god, and 
man becomes his prey. 

It. is not strange, Avhen we study the sub- 
ject a little, to find that the anathemas of 
the l]ible are universally hurled against "the 
rich man." When they were asked to do 
anything for humanity, or God, they always 
"went away sorrowful." One even begrudged 



Plain Words to the American People. 9 

poor Lazarus the lickings the dogs gave his 
sores. But Lazarus got even with hira by a 
happy turn of providence, for when that 
plutocrat offered his first prayer — in hell — for 
Lazarus to bring him a drink, he not only 
enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing pride and 
avarice humiliated and on Dended knee beg- 
ging alms of him, but he was happily saved 
from the severe te>t of doing a Christian act — 
"rendering good for evil," because "there 
was an impassable gulf fixed between them" 
and Lazarus could not go to hell to water 
his former host, however much he should 
have desired to do so. This is the only 
instance I know of where a poor, dog-licked 
beggar ever got even with a haughty pluto- 
crat. Thei*e is consolation in the thought 
for us Lazarites, at any rate, that if the rich 
lord it over us in this world, the thing is 
so arranged that they can't get at us in the 
next. 

There are two extreme conditions of limnan 
life — wealth and poverty. Between these 
two extremes, there is a vast field, across 
which the generations of men have surged 
like great waves of the ocean, only to be 



10 Plain Words to the Ameeican People. 

broken by the sturdy shores of the two ex- 
tremes, and retire until again aroused by the 
voice of storm that call them into action. 
Man seems to be, by nature, a gravitating 
being. The center or equi-distant point 
between two centers of gravitation, holds no 
charms for man ; he is restless and throws 
himself into the balances that are ever on 
the qui vive gravitating towards the two 
extremes. The condition of the human race 
presents itself to me as very much like a 
" teeter " on a large scale. Equally balanced 
by weight on both ends of the great beam, it 
remains stationary ; but along comes two 
children, and rather than separate and one 
get upon each end of the teeter, they prefer 
to cast their lots, for weal or woe, together, 
and they both climb onto one end of the 
teeter, and immediately the gravitating pro- 
cess begins ; and the construction of the 
machine is such, that, acting under natural 
laws, the movement is from the center, and 
towards the two extremes, and as one end of 
the beam goes down the other must go up. 
Thus, it seems to me, that it is not a far 
fetched conclusion to liken the human race 



Plai^' WoiiDS TO THE Ameuican People. 11 

to a lot of children at play "on teeter." 
And I sometimes think there is too much 
truth in the old saw, "misery loves com- 
pany," for we are conscious that we get on 
the down ends of the teeter many times, in 
spite of our better judgment ; but we are all 
"going with the crowd," even though it be 
miserable company. 

The conclusion that we may all be rich if 
we will, does not follow, necessarily ; but it 
is well for us to keep the thought in mind, 
that, however poor we may be, we still have 
something to do in matters that mass or dis- 
tribute wealth. I write, of course, from the 
standpoint of an American citizen, under a 
republican form of government. 

It may appear paradoxical, but to me it 
seems true, that while all rich men are not 
the most intelligent, still intelligence is a 
source of wealth, and the most thoroughly 
educated people are most likely to be the 
rich people ; and the most ignorant people 
stand the best chance to be the poorest peo- 
ple. This is not always true, but the two 
extremes of qualification gravitate towards 
the two extremes of condition. To illustrate ; 



13 Plain Wobds to the AjsiERicA?^ People. 

I suppose a commuuity of people ; there is a 
sufficient number of persons engaged in all 
the proper avocations of life ; it is a model 
community ; peace and harmony prevail ; 
the sounds of industry are heard six days in 
the week, and the church bell calls the pop- 
ulace to worship on the seventh. But the 
great enemy of the race, disease — perhaps 
small-pox — breaks out among the people. 
The community is terror stricken, and the 
populace is wuld with frenzy. One appears 
amidst the tumult and restores somewhat of 
order ; he tells of a physician who has great 
ability, wide experience and universal suc- 
cess in treating the loathsome malady. The 
people call loudly "Who is he? we must have 
him, no matter what the cost; our lives and 
our children are in peril ; go immediately 
for this great physician." The physician is 
summoned, and he proves to be one of the 
citizens of the little community.' He faces 
the danger of contagion ; he treats the 
stricken patients ; he throttles the dread 
monster and drives him from the commu- 
nity. Not a new grave is made to testify 
that the community has been scourged. The 



I'LAIX WoFvD.S ru THE AmEIIICAN- FeuPLE. lo 

[people rejoice ; Ibey honor iIjc neighbor 
who has thus saved Iheiu ; Ihey praise his 
genius; Ihey herald liis fame; they lake 
pride in his superior learning. LJut the (hec- 
tor levies his fees upon thcni ; ihey pay his 
hills cheerfully, although it takes the poor 
laborers' wages for months, to pay for the 
doctor's skill for moments. The doctor 
grows i-irh, liis wealth aiiuiiKiUed by the 
poor's misfoitune ; an«l the [foor grow cor- 
respondingly ))0(jrer as the rich doctor grows 
richer. Sir Sirlney Clark's income was one 
hundred thousand dollars a year. Theie are 
in this caNC two cli^iiTiMit- which govci'u : — 
hrst, foi-tune ; and scc'>n'!, intelligence. It 
is a misfortune to the poor iiian that he or 
his faniily is atUicted wdth the malady; it is 
good fortune for the doctor that they are 
atHictcd. It is a njisfortune to the poor man 
that lie docs not possess the education and 
skill to successfully treat the disease and 
save his own and his family's life. It is 
good fortune for the doctor that he does 
possess the learning and skill superior to all 
other members of the community in the 
treatment of small-pox. Now, we have here 



li Plain Wokds to the Amehican People. 

ill this model community the learned and 
tbe unlearned, perchance on equal financial 
footings ; but the learned grows richer and 
the unlearned grows poorer, from the simple 
circumstances of the two and the smiles and 
frowns of what we are pleased to call fortune. 
We cannot quarrel with the doctor, neither 
with the doctored, and the only resort for 
us is to complain of the powers that make 
such inequality. 

The rich do not always become so by the 
legitimate exercise of superior talent and 
education, but it is sometimes so, and the 
advantacies are on the side of education. 
And then we must also take into account 
the fact that education is wealth. The in- 
dividuals we envy most are those whose 
stock of information is their capital. Pro- 
fessional men and "middle men" have been 
eye-sores to us Lazarites for years past, and 
yet their stock in trade is principally "what 
they know." There are rich men and women 
who are rich in spite of themselves. They 
have neither talent nor education, but they 
have inherited their wealth. These people 



TLiLlN WoEDS TO THE AMERIfAN PeOPJ-F:. I 



do not merit our malediction, for they are 
not to blame for the sin of being rich. 

There is another class of rich men, few in 
number, perhaps, but some who are ricli by 
"a turn of the wheel of fortune." Perha]),s 
"a '49er" "struck it rich," and the poor dirt 
diggers in the mountain gulch yesterday, to- 
day live in palaces, build railroads and osvn 
banks. We ask them to divide, and llicy 
tell us how they "got their start" and advise 
us to try the same ])lan. We covet llieir 
wealth, but we shrink from the laborious aiid 
hazardous undertaking of getting ricli as 
they did. So, while we envy them tlieir 
palaces and their gold, we do not begrudge 
them what it cost them to get their treasures, 
and we say in all candor they ought to enjoy 
their possessions. There is another class of 
rich people : they are men who seem to have 
peculiar capabilities in accomplishing great 
financial undertakings, and in so doing be- 
come wealthy. A man casts his eye along 
the horizon and fancies he sees the coming 
events which will enliance the price of wool. 
He charters a sliip, loads it with wool, and 
braves the raging sea that lies between him 



IG Plain Woeds to the AatERTCAN Peofle. 

and his supposed good market. For days 
and weeks his storm-swept craft, carrying 
all liis earthly possessions, Jbuffets tlie storms 
and the waves, and peril surmounts hope, 
of limes, but at last he makes the port, and 
iinds eager purchasers for his cargo at a profit 
which makes him rich in a day. We ap- 
proach the front gate of that rich man's 
palace and ask him to support us by the 
toothsome crumbs that fall from his bounti- 
ful table, and he tells us " Go, stake all you 
have on earth, your own lives thrown in, 
commit the whole cargo to the raging sea, 
and the uncertainty of the markets of the 
world ; and, if you win as I did, you wouldn't 
eat the crumbs from my table.'' But, we 
say, this is not fair, for we have heard of 
many men who undertook the same thing 
you accomplished, but they all had ship- 
wrecks and lost all, and we don't ])ropose to 
hazard an undertaking of an act wlieve 
ninety-nine men fail while one succeeds. 

Then there is another class of Avhat we 
call " rich men," by far llie largest class, and 
they are the fellows, wlio, with indomitable 
energy, perseverance, relentless toil and 



Pl.ATN WorvDS TO TIFK A^JPir^TC AN PEOri-E. 17 



niggardly economy, favored by fortune, have 
aei'uniulated large amounts of property. 
Que man Iniys a large ti'aet of land when it 
is cheap, he improves it, ])lants orchards and 
cro})S, builds houses and fences; he lives 
within his means, and pretty soon he is rich. 
There is not among all these several classes 
of rich peo})le any one that we feel justified 
in condemning for the sin of being rich, and 
still, the last mentioned class is most vulner- 
able to attack, for the creed of us Lazarites 
is that '-the land is the heritage of the 
people," The people need the land, and 
therefore no man has a right to plant hi;^ 
foot on a thousand acres when a hundred is 
more than his share. But vre have not yet 
considered the case of the rich as it is our 
purpose to do, and we have mentioned, thus 
briefly, a few classes of the rich, that we 
might fix the thought in mind that all rich 
people are not thieves, nor would our own 
sense of justice wan-ant us in a Avholesale 
indictment of the rich^ and a universal tear- 
ing down of fortunes and equal distribution 
of wealth. But there is a class of plutocrats 
that deserve the censure of the poor, and I 



18 PliAl^ WOUDS TO TOE AmF^IMTAN PeOPLR. 

might say, all honest classes of the vi-h as 
welL They are the class who liave accurau- 
latecl wealth by questionable means ; such, 
for instance, as forming a company for 
building a railroad ; em[)loy thous^ands of 
our poor fellow-laborers to build it, and 
when almost completed the "contractor 
busts up," and the poor fellows who have 
built the road can beg or starve till they get 
another job. Or such means as procuring 
bonds from the people to build a I'oad, then 
" sell the bonds," but never build the road, 
as has been done more than once. Then 
there are the "boards of ^-ade " that are, in 
plain English, gamblers, and their stock in 
trade is the poor people's food. They say 
to our brother who produces, " We have a 
corner on wheat, we will give you 89c a 
bushel for your wheat." Then they turn to 
our brother rvho is not a producer, but only 
a consumer, and who earns his bread in the 
factory or the mine, and they say to him, 
"We have a corner on fiour, we will take 
from you 80c for the Hour made from a 
bushel of wheat." The producing brother 
must sell ; the consumii.'!^ brother must 



Plain Woitns t<j tiik Amkki(ja>; Feoi'le. J9 



buy ; but neither make any part of the bar- 
gain. 

But the most gigantic scheme of system- 
atic robbery ever j)ei-petrated on the people, 
M'hich overshadows all others, is that estab- 
lished and tolerated in the midst of the great 
food producing center of the world — 'hat 
"robbers' roost," politely called "The Kan- 
sas City Stock Exchange." It is a mif^^hty 
cancer fastened on the business heart of the 
Avorld. Its virus poisons the entire system 
at every pulsation. The railroads of the 
great West, ^vhich are the arteries of com 
merce, like the ways of Rome, all lead to 
Kansas City, and every one of them is a 
fang, which the great crab has f*astened 
upon the outlying districts, whose life-blood 
is sucked up by this inhuman leach, "The 
Stock Exchange." This concern is the stub- 
born enemy of the people, tbat lifts iis 
brazen head in their path of progress and 
prosperity, like the massive monolith that 
nears the surface in the deepest sea, to wreck 
the fleetest ship laden with the most precious 
cargo. The machinations and the "wheels 
wiihin wheels" that make up the machinery 



20 Plain WoEDS to the Amekk;a:\ Pecj-ee 



of that relentless Sliyiock are multifonii, 
migbiy and monstrous. Hi4»ply aii<i demaini 
have no more to do with the market value of 
cattle, hogs and sheep, than the promises of 
a^ professional politician liave to do ^vilil tlse 
eleventh commandment, which says, " liiou 
shalt not lie." "Thirteen tliousaud ralUc 
on the market yesterday sohl for 4]c." snys 
the telegraph report. "Nine tliousaud cat,- 
tie on the market to-day, nuality l>etter but 
prices lower ; few bidders aud sales slow at 
2^^c." Such are the market reports. Oue 
day hogs are worth G cents and the next day 
<^the market broke aud .'> cents was aM (hat 
was offered." I-Cvery])ody knows tlial t!)o 
scale ol» prices paid for hogs, cat lie aud 
sheep, on the Kansas City market, runs all 
the v\'ay from the highest price paid to thc> 
lowest, in two or tliree months, aud uioit 
frequently in two or three days; arul v, iuui 
the report goes out that " liogs and heavy 
cattle are up," and the producers of them 
imagine a ''snap" and ship in all the l)est, 
they wake up in the Kansas C'ity stock yards 
with their stock, to iind that -'the markd 
broke" yesterday, and that the commission 



Plain WoKDs to jjie Amei'J' \n I'EorLE. 21 



man fears his inability to* soil tu-day at any 
price, and thinks he should take the Hrst 
offer, and generally does. Tlie shi|t}»er u;ets 
his little cdieek for his big steers and Hginos 
up tlie expense, to lind that he has h^si ]iis 
labor and his corn, and hasn't I'eeeived first 
cost of his stock. But wliilc tlie juggler 
plays his art on the j>rodiu'ei- aiid seller, the 
consumer never hears tiiat the market has 
broke in the s])oi> where Im' deais, e\('e|it 
that the priee has gone up. It iur\er gcfs 
dovni at tlie sho}) where he buys, although it 
goes below the cost nl' protluciug at the 
slaughtei- )>ens. 

That this legerdemain preleu e td' a'vuiar- 
ket" has been prao! iecd. up((n the ]>eople of 
this country for year.<, is open to the Ijroad 
daylight of every day observation ; and al- 
though it lias not passed entirely unnotie(nl, 
it has still been so well' fortlHed behind 
every interest conducive of wealth, that none 
have thought it possible to destroy its death- 
dealing grip on the people- 

"The Kansas City Stock Yards Company" 
is a corporation worih multiplied millions of 
dollars, every one of which liave been taken 



S2 pLAiN Words to the Amejucan People. 

from the producers' and consumers of meats, 
by the most conscienceless system of corrupt 
combination and inhuman greed that the 
world ever tolerated. 

Pharaoh's treatment to the children of 
Israel was fatherly, and liobespierre's and 
Jeffrey's sense of justice and compassionate 
mercy, were mild in the extreme when com- 
pared with this fiddling Nero while the peo- 
ple starve. It is not only a corporation, 
such as Lord Coke described, ''without i\ 
heart to feel, eyes to see, or a soul to damn," 
but it is such a one, within a circle of others, 
whose moiety of respectability lends a color 
of business enterprise to this great king of 
cannibals, 

A corporation is said to be an " artificial 
person," and I suppose it logically follows, 
"without body or parts," and being such, it 
is difficult to locate his abode ; but this one 
is so artfully artificial that its existence is 
admitted, but so ubiquitous that it cannot 
be definitely located at anyone place. This, 
and kindred institutions, is the class of rich 
men that is one of the extremes that must be 



PLAI^' Words to the Ameuka^ Pei 



mollified, either by law or by a stern means 
of necessity. 

I am told that tbe theoretical qualifica- 
tions of a legislator are "wisdom, good- 
ness and power;" '^wisdom to discern tbe 
real interests of tbe community ; goodness, 
to endeavor always to pursue that real inter- 
est, and power to carry this knowledge and 
intention into action." I am delighted with 
tbe beauty of tbe theory; but I conf-. ss, I 
am sometimes disappointed with the prac- 
tical workings of this admirable theory. It 
seems that legislators have thus far been 
"weighed in the balance and found want- 
ing" in some one or more of these essential 
qualifications. They have not possessed the 
"wisdom to discern the real interests of the 
community" with reference to tlie Stock 
Yards Co., and kindred concerns^, or they 
have been destitute of 'goodness to pursue 
that real interest," or they have not had tbe 
"power to carry their knowledge and in 
tention into action." If we are charitable, 
we will concede to our legislators both wis 
dom and goodness, and excuse conditions 
upon the theory of their weakness or lack 



24 Plain WortOS to the Amkiucan People. 

of power to carry out tbeir good intentions. 
But sucli a charitable concession can but 
stigmatize our whole system of legislation, 
and stamps the government with puerility. 
If the fault is with the legislators., we need 
a better lot ; if it is with the government, 
we demand a stronger form. 

A statesman (?) — a candidate for congres- 
sional honors — not long since ^aid to me, in 
answer to a question I asked him about the 
same institution : " The trouble about leii- 
islating against such things is, they are imag- 
inary creatures, and almost, if not quite im- 
possible to reach by law." And, I regret to 
say, he was the poor man's candidate, too. 
It seems to me that the wisdom of a legis- 
lator ought to discover lohat this Stock 
Yards Company is, and lohere it is. In the 
tirst place, why are the millions of cars of 
live stock shipped into Kansas City over 
every line of railroad, unloaded in the Kan- 
sas City Stock Yards Co.'s yards, and the 
shipper compelled to pay twenty-five cents 
ahead '^yardage" on them? Is it because 
the railroad companies are part and parcel 
of the Stock Yards Co.? Why is it that a 



PLAI24 WOBDS TO THE AjMEKiCJAN PEOI'LE. 25 

man can't sell his stock in Kansas City, but 
is compelled to pay a commission man fifty 
cents a head for playing that he sells them? 
I am told there is no prohibition against a 
man selling his own stock ; that he could 
do so if he could find a buyer ; but that 
none of the packers will buy a head of stock 
from the owner, but must only buy from 
the commission men. Why not? Are they, 
the Armours, the Swifts, the Reids, the 
Schwarzschilds, the Dolds and the Fowlers, 
part and parcel of the Kansas City Stock 
Yards Co., or are they, the railroad compa- 
nies and the Beef Trust, etc., so many dif- 
ferent names for the same game at which 
each plays his part, one a "center field," 
another " short stop," while the "pitcher" 
gets in his work and the '• striker" docs his 
duty and every body makes a "home run." 
"The commission man" has of late years 
come in for more than his share of denuncia- 
tion from a misapprehension on the part of 
some of our people. The fact is, that the 
"commission men" are the vei-y smallest par- 
ticle, if a particle at all, of the injustice and 
robber methods practiced upon the people. 



26 Plain Woeds to the American People. 

They are but as grains of sand along the 
beach, compared wilh tlie mghty Alps that 
lie behind. The commission men of the 
Kansas City Stock Yards pay more exacting 
tribute than Caisar ever dreamed of, by 
way of rents to the "Company." I am 
informed by reliable authority that the rents 
of the yards and buildings yield to the con- 
cern a daily income of more than a quarter 
of a million dollars. Think of it ! A quar- 
ter of million dollars a day, the royalty the 
producers and the consumers pay to the 
demands of rapacious greed upon their 
meat ! This is grossly wrong and this 
kind of wealth getting and abusive use of 
wealth are the evils of the time. A man or 
set of men who have acquired wealth by fair 
means and by use of superior ability, 
industry and economy, such as we have 
instanced in the preceding pages, ought to 
be protected by law and the universal assent 
of every laboring man and good citizen in 
the enjoyment of their property while theX 
use it legitimately. But wealth, no matter 
how^ honestly acquired, should never be 
allowed to be used as a weapon to oppress 



Plain Wobds to the American People. 2? 

the poor, degrade labor, nor wrong the 
l^eople. Wealth is a mighty weapon and its 
possession by one clothes his arm with a 
power that may be wielded for great good 
or for a monstrous evi|. The love of money 
and the pleasures of wealth are so strongly 
intermingled in the fibre of man's being that 
he becomes so intoxicated with its posses- 
sion that he is apt to lose sight of all 
interest except se//" interest, and becomes so 
absorbed in its own aifairs that he has no 
time to spend in philanthropic study of 
humanity, and contents himself to rest the 
question on the philosophy of life, that 
se?/" interest will prompt every man to look 
out for himself, and that by this law the 
whole affairs of society and government will 
be kept in equilibrium. This is all nice 
enough in theory, but it doesn't work well 
for the poor, in practice, and for this reason 
wealth is strength ; poverty is weakness, and 
this argues everything, for the fundamental 
principle of all forms of government and all 
law is "the protection of the weak against 
the strongj." 

So we find that the verv constitution of all 



28 Plain Words to the American People, 

civilized life and the societies of men are 
laid upon the principle that the strong shall 
not trample upon the weak. When wealth, 
avarice and greed have no other restraint 
than the limits of their combined ability, 
poverty, charity and prodigality will as 
surely suffer as the magnet attracts the 
smaller particles of steel. 

We have no sympathy whatever with the 
wild-eyed fanaticism that advocates the de- 
struction of wealth or "an equal division of 
property," for good and sufficient reasons 
hereinafter given ; but we do believe that 
the interests of society and the state, and 
tlie common cause of humanity demand that 
such restraint should be put upon the use of 
wealth that it could not be made a perpetual 
menace to every avenue of industry, to every 
article of commerce, and to tlie vast army of 
tlie world's population, whose honest toil is 
the source from which all necessaries and all 
luxuries of life come. So we see the neces- 
sity of law, strong as the nation itself, that 
will protect the industry of the producer and 
the consuQier, against such combinations as 
the "Kansas City Stock Yards Company," 



Pr.Aix Wor.T).'^. TO Tiir: A^tKr.K a.n Pe 



OPLE. 



"'IMie Si nek Ex(;1i:iti->;^ lii,. '^Beef Trust," 
tli<- -Ciii:;!-.. lioai-,1 wf ^I'ni.le/'and all other 
and .sii!!ii;;r iiistilutiotis ^vhu'h exist for no 
other [Hii|o-.'. a)M] fiil do other sphere than 
inrales mj |],.. . ,..^ of humanity, robbing 
evei'y liiile ci-xh of ]{< cargo of provisions, 
and <-iis!aving {\u']y ueak and unfortunate 

li T wPiv ;i l!=-;is!al()r]iinrder the thought 
r woiihl suggest (,:, ilio railroad companies 
that tlioy esta]>lish asid maintain ample and 
snffieienl stoek yai'ds for tlio aecommodation 
ol all liv<1.)ek shijM.ed to market over their 
1|^"- 'k' ^iejiMt- (or the a.:eommoda- 

^1'-"' '•' I'.i - - ii[M^]s wlio trave]. I would suo;- 
gest to ilic paekers that tliey might buy their 
stock dii'ect from the ]/ree<lers and shippers, 
and take tlie anim.ds fi-om the raili-oad pens. 
I would siiggcsl tile j.ropriely of a law which 
would prevent the existenee of sueii ()uixotio 
market metliods, as indii<-iiig large shipiuents 
by a ^Men-cent raise,'' and wJieii tlie stock 
arrived, fonjid the market llfty cents lower. 
I would suggest tJiat a consignment of stock 
loaded at a way station and delivered to a 
jadroa<I comj)any shnnki not Ijc sold for less 



when it got to market than it was quoted to 
be worth on the day It was consigned and 
delivered to the railroad company. I would 
suggest that profits on meat and breadstuff s 
should not, at any time, exceed 10 per cent, 
on the amount invested over and above cost 
of grinding and packing. And I would be 
decidedly in favor of a law that would not 
allow a packing house or butcher shop to 
make from ten to fifteen dollars profit on 
a hundred pounds of meat, as is now done. 
If the producer of pork, live weight, only 
gets four cents a pound, the consumer of the 
same pork, cured, twenty days or three 
months later, should not be compelled to pay 
fifteen and twenty cents a pound for it. It 
may be said this would be impracticable, 
but I think not more so than the regulation 
of the rate of interest. In fact, it seems to 
me to be much easier ; a legitimate profit 
upon ea.ch pound of meat and each bushel of 
grain is not too intricate to be practicable. 
It is worth trying anyway. 

But we must be careful not to run to ex- 
tremes in this matter by any ill advised or 
retaliatory measures. The legitimate use of 



Plain Wokds to the Amekican Peoplij. ol 

capital is the poor man's only refuge ; 
neither should we be so foolish as to enter 
judgment of wholesale condemnation against 
the accumulation of wealth and massing it 
into corporations and companies for the 
purpose of carrying on great enterprises for 
the public and private use. There are oery 
feio individuals who could build, equip and 
operate a railroad upon liis own means ; but 
many persons may join in the enterprise and 
mass a large share of their means into one 
fund, divided into and represented by 
thousands of shares, and by this massing of 
individual wealth into a community of in- 
terest it becomes practicable for the enter- 
prise to go forward, and in this way not 
only one, but a great net- work of railroads 
have been constructed. Railroads have 
become a necessity in this age, therefore con- 
centrated wealth comes forward to supply 
the demands of society and the necessity of 
the people. This is true in thousands of 
instances. The great St. Louis and Brook- 
lyn bridges were necessities, yet no one man 
would hazard his entire fortune on such an 
uiidertaking. But many men with com- 



3'3 Plain Words to the AxAieiucan Flotle. 

billed means and courage undertook and ac- 
complished the construction, and supplied 
by combined wealth that which otherwise 
would, in all probability, never have been 
accomplished. There is not a line of steam- 
ships that plow the seas that are owned by 
one man. They are owned by companies 
and corporations, and they are a necessity. 

The much talked of irrigation of the 
plains of the west will come in time, but it 
will never be done by one man. No one 
man has money enough to do it, and if he 
had he would not venture to stake it all on 
one experiment. So, when irrigation of 
the vast plains of the arid land is accom- 
plished, it will be by concentrated wealth, by 
companies or corporations. In fact all the 
great enterprises of the world, which tend 
to the uplifting of mankind and the amelio. 
ration of the I'ace in the u])ward trend and 
onward march of civilization, have been 
accomplished by concerted action of men, 
and aggregation of capital. 

In the extravagance of language, wc iind 
liere people condemning the money power, 
the 2:oid huiis, the corpural lojis and com- 



iN Vro;;i>- Tr, ■nil-: Ay.i.i:icx:s Veoplt.. 



l>iiies witb a viciousness born of folly. It is 
5iot ill tlie existtiu-e of these things of them- 
selves that is (ieserviiig of so much and 
jiuelr universal lualedictioii, but in the 
improper and tvraiiuieal use made of accu- 
jjiulated wealth by it-; possessors, sometimes, 
that deserves the eonderanatlon of men. 
liecause now aiul then there is an instance 
of abuse of wealth is- no reason why aU 
wealtli >hould be <lestn.yed. Wealth has 
its legitimate place in the economy of social 
lii'e^ and well being of the human race. All 
jfiten exist, and because sometimes a few bad 
men commit unlawful acts is no reason whv 
<f/i men should be hanged. 

This is a ]?eculiar and wonderful age of 
the. world and the great enterprises of the 
world to-day could not be carried on witb- 
*iiil the aggregation of wealth. The great 
majority. of the human family are workers; 
tiiere are few idlers as compared with the 
niisa'beir of workers. The laborer must of 
B!*?«e^ssity have an employer, and one employer 
'vms.j and dK)es furnish labor for a great 
Hia^^ber of employed. But suppose such a 
C0fi^ltion of things to exist as the wealth of 



34 ri.AlN WoKUS TO THK A^^^K-f''^- -^ ^' PEOPLE. 

tbis nation taken by force and scattered or 
divided so as to endow each and every 
individual with an equal share, with each 
and all the rest, and suppose that discontent 
mid distrust among individuals should then 
be as widespread as the scattered wealth. 
Again su|>posc that the inequality of men 
woold tluis be cured so as to offer a perfect 
social organism and tinancial policy, blow 
many individuals would there be who could 
send out a ship with a cargo to sea, equip 
and man a train of cars, drive the wheels of 
a rolling mill, turn the spindles of a factory 
or fill the bolts of a flouring mill ? I dare 
say that without a combine of the aggregate 
wealth of several individuals united into one 
purpose not a single business enterprise in 
all the land could move; and with such dis- 
trust among the people I cannot conceive 
how there could be concerted action and 
harmony enough among the members of 
the human family to organize from such 
meager individual resources a sufficient fund 
to caiTy on a single industry that would be 
of any considerable advantage to humanity. 
But if all things were possible in the busi- 



ri.AiN WoiDs T • ll!!-: AMEr:ICAN TkoIM 11. 35 



ness transactions wiili bucli a, condition as 
wealth equally divided, still I apprehend 
that the iinancial problem of the world 
would not be solved. Men are not equally 
endowed by nature nor nature's Ood. One 
man seems to possess ten talents and others 
rano-e downward in the scale until another 
has but one. Thus it seems to have ever 
been and it is safe to say that it will con 
tinue to be so for at least some years to 
€ome. Different dispositions, different tem- 
peraments, different habits, varied conditions, 
and a thousand and one other things enter 
in to make up the varied and multiform 
characteristics of the human race. And in 
all this diversity which seems to be proper 
in the economy of the human race, to somti 
extent at least, there is seen superiority in 
one and inferiority in another ; and ranging 
between the two extremes are the interme- 
diate conditions of men. The world has 
produced a few great financiers, a great 
many great generals, a vast army of patriots, 
countless millions of martyrs, some traitors, 
and the ends of the earth are peopled with 
the poor. 



r«6 Pr.AlN WOIIDS TO THE A'MEKTCAlSr rEOPJ.ET. 



The greatest Philosopher tJiat ever blesse*! 
the earth with His presence said: '^Tlie 
poor ye have alwaj-s with you," and iMb^ 
declaration comprehends the fact tliat soiss' 
men are so constituted that if they were 
rich to-day tiiey would be poor to-morrow.. 

r fancy I see there a group of individRal>- 
in conversation, all of whom have an eqnsil 
amount of property ; they earnestly discn^^if 
some business or financial project ; I bear 
the discussion — some for, some against: 
some are skeptical, others are hopeful ab€>iit 
the successful prosecution of the enterprise; 
finally the group divides : five men sgi-^M- 
that the plan is feasible, five hundred diss- 
gree and declare that it cannot be dose: 
they shake their heads in distrust, limy 
declare they would not hazard the chancers c^f 
losing their present possessions upon ms 
uncertain investment. The five organic* 
themselves into a company, undertake tht- 
enterprise with their aggregate means. Tht- 
wheels of time turn round and results prove 
that they were financieis ; their project is it 
success, and they are richer by far than tfee 
five hundred who" were not financiers, asid 



Plain Woi;d> ro the American FKorLE. ZZ 

who went away and rested their fortwneJt 
lipon wli;. tliey possessed. I see another 
group of men; I bear thein earnestly de- 
bating the question of iinance and trad<% the 
development of the resources of the eouiitiy^ 
t,he upbuilding of the nation. Some advo- 
cate new tiioughts, new enterprises, great 
iindertakings ; but the great majoiity, of 
one accord, declare that sueli thh)gs arc 
chimerical, that this state of things was, tliey^ 
say, good enough for their ancestors, and. 
they are not in for any new-fang^ d notions 
or things; that the world o\vr_- them a 
living; that they have enougli i -r to-day; 
ihat they ^\"ill trust to providence for to- 
rr.orrow; and they out-talk and oul-vote the 
few Avho seem to possess different ideas, and 
all together go down the streets and dis- 
£,]^pear from the marts of trade and the shops 
of industry. A few years go by, and again 
I see a vast concourse of people. 1 hear 
loud talk of one whose loquacity seems to^ 
be his allotment in the general distribution 
of wealth, and I hear him say, '^'Alarming I 
alarming ! the condition of the people ; tiie 
vast majority are day after day growing 



38 Plain Woi:i>s to tut: A^-iERiCAN People. 

poorer; our property is fast passing into tLe 
hands of the few ; the rich are growing 
richer; hunger and want stalks abroad in 
the land with gigantic strides, and starva- 
tion, like the black camel — the Hindoo's 
Yision of deatli — kneels at every door,, 
We are all paupers and tramps, while the 
few are millionaires; the wealth we once 
possessed has passed into the possession of 
the favored few." 

I do not believe that an equal division of 
property once made, would solve the labor 
troubles, correct financial evils, nor in the 
least equalize men. Never, till the Almighty 
reconstructs humanity, will men be equal. 
Why should all be equal? How could all 
be equal? If all were astronomers who 
would be the grinders and polishers of the 
sensitive glasses that bring to view the 
hidden worlds? If all were grinders and 
polishers of glass who would create a market 
for the product and put it to use? If all 
were producers of bread and meat, who 
would grind and spin and weave, and con- 
sume the surplus product? If all were poor, 
who would supply tlicir i;.eed? If all were 



Plain \Vo!rii> ■;•'> viik A^VRK-Ay; Pkotle. 39 



rich who would be a tinker, a slioemaker or 
a tailor? If all were farmers, who would 
mine the coal and the precious metals? If 
all were miners, who would be the teach- 
ers and college profest^^ors to educate the 
race? If tliere is any diiiercnce between a 
man who cannot read and a college profes:- 
sor, then there is a difference in men, that 
will not be equalized. If there is a differ- 
ence between a professor of science, whose 
great mind searches the realms of existence 
and demonstrates great truths, but who is the 
" silent thinker '' and couhi not deliver an 
oration to a public assembly of his fellow 
men, and tlie impassioned orator, like 
Patrick Henry, who niouiits the tribune in 
the hour of Liberty's peri], and with heaven- 
inspired eloquence arouses a nation to arms, 
to drive back an invading foe that comes to 
make men slaves — if theie is any difference 
between tliese two great benefactors of man- 
kind, tiien, e^ ei- all great men are not equal. 
No, men are not equal, never have l)een, and 
as the Bible teaches a Heaven and llell, 
they never will be. The Creatoi of men arid 
the universe, is too rich in conception of 



« PlAIX WOKD.s TO THE AmEFJCAN PEOPl>fe. 

variety to have ever duplicated anything. 
2!fo two leaves in all the forest are alike ; 
M& two stars iu all the countless millions in 
tfee ^' milky way" that glitter like dnst on 
the back ground of the universe are alike, 
gfeOid no two human beings are the same. 

I am not a printer nor a book maker, but I 
kianible myself before tlie Creator in most 
sliicere gratitude that he endowed my elder 
l>rother, man, with the talent and genius to 
iavent the art. I am ignorant of the means 
l>j which electricity is chained to a car, con- 
diicted through a wire, drives ponderous 
siiachiaery and gives excellent light ; by 
which I send and receive telegraph message?* 
on matters of importance, the sickness or 
death of friends. But I am profoundly 
Hiankf lJ that my honored brothers, Franklin 
aad Edison, were so richly endowed Avith 
geoius as to discover the means. 

If any one thing should heighten my grat- 
ifciide above another, it would be that Colnm- 
l>iis was greater than all his opposition, and 
thisit he differed from the mob that surround- 
ed him on the deck of the Santa Maria and 
tkreatened to throw him into the sea because 



Pl-AIN WoKDS TO THE A MEXICAN PeOPT.K. 41 



the quivering steel stood still under the 
equator. To the God given genius of a Co- 
lumbus we are indebted for a hoine.in this 
empire of liberty. 

The wealth of the United States could iiCit 
be equally distributed without destructioB to 
the commerce of the world. Every sMp 
would drift idly upon the sea ; every tram 
of cars would stand still ; every bank wo<bM 
flose its doors ; every mill shut dowm ; e\'eTj 
factory cease to hum ; every furna.ce eea.se to 
blaze ; every loom be silent ; and all because 
<f(j(jregate wealth had been destroyed, and »ck 
individual had means sufficient to move any 
of these things for a single day. 

Not only this, but colleges must fail, char- 
itable institutions must die, and tbe temple* 
f)i learning and of worship moulder in silent 
ruins to the earth. ^'In union there is 
strength," in separation there is destructton. 

But it would be Impvssihle to divide tbe 
wealth of the United States equally, giving 
to each individual his separate share. 
When wealth is massed, or collected,. o:r 
aggregated, as we may please to call it, as 
in the factories, ship j^ards, car and macihine 



4i Fl.AiN WoiiDS TO THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 

Bbops, rolling mills, railroads and the costly 
buildings in the great cities ; thousands and 
millions of dollars' worth is encompassed in 
such small space that it M^ould be impossible 
to divide it, without by the same act de- 
stroying it. How could the machinery in a 
mill or factory be divided without destruc- 
tion of the mill? How could a ship be 
divided without destruction of the ship? 
How could a bank be divided without 
destruction of tke concern? How could 
the buildings of a city be divided with- 
out annihilation and utter destruction? 
Suppose the wealth of the United States 
(and in this word viealth, 1 mean to include 
everything of value — land, money and all 
other kinds of property) if equally divided 
between the sixty-six millions of people, 
would give each one a tJwusand dollars 
value. How could the property be divided 
so as to give each one his individual share? 
It appears to me as though it would tax the 
theoretical wisdom of a legislator to answer 
this question. 

By reason of my poverty, I have never been 
able t»o visit New York City though much I 



Plaix VTords to the American People. 43 

desire to see the great metropolis of 
wealth, wisdom and wickedness. But I am 
told that on "Wall Street" and "Broadway" 
lots are worth twenty thousand dollars a 
foot. In an equal division I would only get- 
one-twentieth part of one foot of ground 
there. "That knocks all hope out" of my 
ambition to become a "Broadway plutocrat" 
or a "Wall Street gold bug." The land thus 
divided would be of no practical value to 
the individuals, and so much of the wealth 
might, for all practical purposes, as well be 
cast into the sea. Then there are erected 
upon these costly grounds, fine buildings 
worth many thousands, and some of them 
millions, of dollars each. They could not 
be divided so as to give each individual his 
one thousand dollars' worth of property 
without destruction of every building in the 
cities of the country. Then again, there is 
the land; it could not be equally divided up 
to the individuals, and occupied and held as 
such, in allotments of one thousand dollars* 
valuation each. Land, some places, is not 
worth fifty cents an acre, while other places 
it is worth one hundred dollars an acre. 



M Plain Words to the AmeriCxVn People. 

Tills would make an average of about fifty 
dollars an acre for all the land that is worth 
anything at all. A thousand dollars' worth 
of average land would be about twenty acres, 
Tliis would not be sufficient for a man to 
make a living on. I learn this fact from 
rlie testimony of many farmers, who tell me 
tliey have only one hundred and sixty acres 
*>£ land and thai they can't make a living. 
editeate their children, }3ay their taxes and 
keep out of debt, even though they got their 
IsM-di from Uncle Sam as a homestead for 
Ij^iup- on it. And some have mortsraojed 
ttjeir homesteads and lost them. The fact 
1.% that no greater serfdom could be imposed 
sipoii the farmers of America, than to have 
tliem limited to twenty acres of ground each. 
But this is not all. No farmer could do his 
little farming on twenty acres without a 
team, Iciriiess, plows, wagon, etc. And to 
l^ave them in the division of property, woukl 
lessen his one thousand dollars' worth of 
land ju't in proportion to the value of his 
teams and equipments for use, which in no 
c^isc*. could probably be less than two hundred 
a»d fiftv dollars, and in more cases won';! 



Platx AYot:d>! to the A^[krtcax Feopi.e. 4r> 

l>e li\e hundred dollars ; this yvould cut the 
laisd down to fifteen or ten acres. In this 
*-3Lk*ulation I haven't calculated anything for 
tlie farmers' houses, to be built on every 
twenty or fifteen or ten acres of farms, and 
1 will not consider that; for if I did, 1 
woald have to calculate on a i.ew style of 
aixihitecture to accommodate tlie surplus 
t-tipital of the farmer for building purposes, 
nitd eot being an architect I would not know 
iiow to do that. 

If we got our property properly pro- rated 
:ss»5d mixed — money and property — each one 
would have about 1975 property and $25 
eti^ii. riiis would again divide the strength 
ol' wealth to our detriment, for no one would 
liave enough money to do any kind of 
basiness with; and, if some got only prop- 
A'Tty ?ind no money, while others got 
'all money, then the consequences would 
l^; the same. Individually, men could 
not do anything in the necessary business? 
aH^airs of civilized life. A man could not 
loan a thousand dollars and live and support 
a IVimily on the interest— certainly not at 
'•ivro per cent, per annum." 



46 Plaisj Words to the American People. 

But there is another reason why wealth 
could not be equally divided. I have inti- 
mated in the preceding pages that education 
38 wealth. Indeed, it is the only abiding 
wealth. Is it not an every day expression, 
**I will give my children an education; no- 
body can cheat them out of that, nor steal 
it from them ?" It is a class of wealth that 
generations have been trying to distribute 
equally amongst posterity. The most liberal 
laws have been enacted for the benefit of the 
poor. Colleges have been endowed; the free 
school system maintained. The rich, who 
many times have no children to educate, 
liave been taxed to build school houses and 
pay teachers to educate the poor man's chil- 
di-eii. Compulsory attendance at the public 
schools laws have been passed, all with a 
view to endow every child with his share of 
this greatest treasure of wealth ; and yet, 
despite all this effort, all this law, there are 
persons ignorant of the commonest affairs of 
life. It shows that some people will educate 
in spite of circumstances, while others will 
be ignorant in spite of law. 

Then education as a factor of wealth can- 



Pi>Aix Words ro the American People. 47 



not be equally divided. If, then, property 
be equally divided, what will tb.e ignorant 
man, rith his thousand dollars' worth of 
properly , balance against the educated man 
with his equal amount of property ? Men 
would not be equal, financially, by an equal 
division of property. 

Civilized life of the great family of man 
does not require all to be equal in the 
ownership of property, but the requirements 
are directly the opposite. The man who 
runs a flou'ing mill, requires many thousands 
of dollars to prosecute the work. The pro- 
fe'^sioial man needs no money in the pursuit 
of his business. His professional education 
and ability are his capital, and are all he 
needs, if he la fairly equipped. The far- 
mers — the class who produce the food for 
all men, require a large investment of money 
in land, buildings, machinery and stock, to 
successfully prosecute their business. The 
miner requires only a pick. The skilled 
laborers require no tools, they arc furnished 
l)y the employer. The farmer supplies his 
hired help with tools and teams. The rail- 
road company suj>plies its laborers with ali 



48 Plain Words to the Ameiucan Peopj.k- 

implements. The painter needs onlj a 
brush ; the sculptor only a chisel. 

The man who has a trade, possesses?, s 
capital that cannot be divided, and he ha^ a 
great advantage over his brother niaB, -who- 
has no trade. 

I am convinced that we have entertaiee^i 
erroneous opinions about capital. It is iiot 
the destruction of capital, either by ani>ilii- 
lation or by universal distribution — eitln-y of 
which would be equally disastrous — that we 
want. We should understand more o^f tbe 
economy of the social life, in the affairs of 
universal men, and the placing each aii^l 
every individual in his proper sphere of Iift%. 
then Ave would see, I think, the two so-calle^l 
classes of "'rich and poor" in an entirely dif- 
ferent light from what we have bei"» 
accustomed to view them. This "deadly 
antagonism between capital and labor" ihBt 
we have been so much alarmed aWut:, 
proves to be mirage when we investigate it- 
That there is a conflict now going om 
between the two there is no doubt, but it isy 
because of misunderstanding. It is like two- 
Khips upon the ocean that come up wiOi 



I'l.AiN WoKK^ lo TJiH Amki:ka.v Pkople. 49 



each olber in tln^ ^'ogs, and each mistaking 
xhc otiier for an cneniy, opened tire. The 
contiict rageil under direction of tlie ea}.- 
tains of tlie respective ships for hours, till 
the fogs raised and revealed the fact that 
V)oth shijis I'cI'Higed to the same <'0imtrv, 
both loaded with cargoes for tlie same 
harbor, and the cajitains of tlie two were 
brothers. 

We cannot but nu lerstand that capital is 
an absolute necessity in the business of the 
world ; that it is the hand-maid of civiliza- 
tion and the source of supply of all our 
liational wants. Labor, on the other hand, 
is as much a necessit\% and as indisp)ensable 
in the business of civilized life, as is capital. 
As Uiawatha has it : 

••As r.nto th*' bow the c-»rd is : 
bselcss each Aviihout the other.'* 

The "deadly conflict" between capital 
xnd labor is the grossest piece cd* folly ever 
indulged in by intelligent men. 

We should have a better understanding of 
the situation, and then we would be in a 
position to correct such abuses as there may 



no Pi. A IX WoiU)s; to the Amktucax Pi'-0PT,E. 

l>e, by whatever Baetliod is best adaptetl for 
the purpose. 

Capital is the great agency by whicli civ- 
ilization extends her borders, enriches her 
dominions and fortifies her children against 
the barbarian and the brute. Capital is the 
niighty raainspring that supplies the means 
to pri-iit every book and paper; maintains leg- 
islatures, courts, churches, ministers, teachers. 
All the means, advantages, conveniences, 
comforts and blessings of civilized life come 
to us like ministering angels — the children 
of capital. 

Capital is always aggregate wealth, and it 
must of necessity always be so ; and to 
divide it and scatter it, would be a most 
successful way to destroy it. 

Let us k(ep the thought in mind, that 
aggregate capital is an absolute necessity in 
the maintenance of civilized life of the 
human race; and then, let us take the next 
step and grasp the fact, that the greater the 
wealth the higher the system of living and 
educatir;g and polishing, the people require. 
When we understand the relation that each 
one of us sustains to capital, the antagonism 



Platx Wokds to Tin- A.\rK»;if ax PKori.K 



or war between us, as laborers and capital, 
will cease. The poorest man on carih is 
interested in thv^ eapital eoiitrollod ]>y tlio 
richest man, an<l if he, in his poverty, and 
perhaps misfortune, becomes an «d)jt'ct of 
charity, he then sliares in tlie agi^regato 
capital controlled by Dlhers. There is not 
an a&ylum for the unfortunate sons and 
daughters of Adam's race, either insane, 
blind, deaf, maimed or poor, but what 
stands a monument of aggregate capital ; 
and every inmate is her ward. There is not 
a laboring man in the world but what is 
interested in the success of aggregate wealtii- 
gatherers. It is wholly immaterial to me 
who controls or owns a million dollars, «>r 
ten millions, if, when my day's work is dcnie, 
I receive a reasonable compensatioii for niy 
labor. But what I am inteni<ehj interested 
in, is knowing that somebtxly has the capital 
to pay me with. 

It is gratifying to ever}- man of limited or 
moderate means, or of no means at all, to 
know that cajutal exists in the land in great 
abundance, and that it is at certain points 
aggregated in such cpaantities as to enable 



52 PlAIX WOIIDS TO THK AMF.JIIC'AN PkOPI-E. 



its possessors and o'ivners to prosecute great 
enterprises of business. Witb this knowl- 
edge as a basi^ of operations, we may ga 
forth to the discbarge of our duties in the 
various callings of life like an army that 
marches into the field at the call of duty, 
never questioning the country's cause, nor 
doubting its justice in the matter of pay. We 
are a great army of workers and our chief 
concerji is how to get capital so invested 
and active, as to give us employment and 
pay us for our labor. Dead capital is what 
we have to fear. As laborers, we should 
conduct ourselves toward capital so as Xv in- 
s}>ire its possessors witli the belief that we 
VLVQ friends anrl not pncitiies. And that ca[>- 
ital invested in business wliich, l>y reason or* 
our employment, is placed in our hands, 
shall not be in danger of destruction by us 
but that it shall be guarded and protected 
by us while in our keeping the same as if it 
were our own, and that all we ask is justice 
in the matter of vi'ages and measure of time. 
Establidi this confidence and capital will 
no. longer hide itself from arson and dyna 
mite and theft. Establish this conlidenoe 



Pl.ALN WOIJDS TO ril: A.MP.inCVN FlX)I»I.F.. 5;^ 

and ''tlie bursting Viiults of hoarded gold 
in the Wall street banks" will be emptied ; 
t'Ujjital will seek investment ; the sounds of 
im]u>try will be heard in the land; new 
fields will be opened; new enterprises will 
be undertaken, new marts of business will 
spring into existence; new ships will go 
down to the seas laden with new products 
from new fields of industry, and every 
honest and industrious man will be glad and 
his family happy because capital is abund- 
ant and, like himself, is at work. 

No sane man can fail to see that it is only 
when capital seeks seclusion through fear of 
destruction, or becomes unremunerative on 
ihv investment, that industry suffers and the 
laborer needs be "unemployed." 

And now to resume the consideration of 
an '* equal division of property." As we 
have seen that such a thing could not be 
done without destruction — by reference to 
the lots and buildings in great cities, and, in 
fact, everywhere — we see that one twenty- 
five foot lot in iNciw York City would have 
to be owned by five hundred men, and the 
buildino^ on it by five hundred more, so the 



A Plain WoKDS to tue Amekicax PEorLE. 



same condition of aggregate wealth must con- 
tinue. If property is not destroyed and if it 
be continued under any system, it must be- 
done by aggregation and community of inter- 
est — by combinations. 

We are brought to the irresistible conclus- 
ion that if such a system should or could be 
inaugurated dividing the wealth of this 
nation "equally," it must at once result in 
destruction of property, of commerce and of 
prosperity, or else it must immediateljr 
result in combination, community of interest 
in aggregate capital, necessary to carry om 
the colossal business of this great country ;; 
and if such must be the inevitable result,, 
why undertake, or even advocate, the experi- 
ment ? But I see jet another difficulty con- 
fronting us in an equal division of property,^ 
and I fear it would result finally in greater 
combinations, and more seltishness, and less 
charity among men, than there is now. 1 
see humanity the same, although the system^ 
of government changed. I see the vast con- 
course of people congregate together on the- 
day appointed for the distribution. 1 see 
there the millionaire humiliated and depress 



Plain Wokds to the Amef.icax Peoi't.k. 



;fv€d at the sight of bis property distributed 
.amongst gamblers, drunkards, tramps and 
lidlers. 1 see the " well-to-do " cla^s there, 
who have a competency earned by industry 
4ind frugality. I see their wives weep when 
the crowd pulls the furniture out of the house. 
I hear them say, "It is dastardly to take thi^t 
little property from us now, we have v^^orked 
.so hard to make it, we are getting old and 
we need it." And the children cry, and tlic 
i^ather nerves himself and says, '• Never mind, 
wife. Children, don't cry, we'll get it back 
-or I'll get some better." And while the rich 
mourn and the middle-class weep, the loafers 
and the thugs rejoice, and the unfortunate 
poor feel jubilant and say, "This is our turn," 
The division is made, and I see the crowd 
disperse and each goes his way. The rich 
iTian goes back to his palace, aud finds it 
full of a mixed class of "joint OAvners," 
eveiy " previous condition," color and class 
is there represented. His cultured wife and 
educated children cling to him and say "We 
cannot live here v/ith such a mob as this. 
There are criminals and barbarians among 
vthem." And he pacifies them by saying : 



56 Plain Wop.ds to the Amekican Peoim-e. 

"Never mind; Ave can't help Ibis thing 
to-day. Our property is all gone, but my 
brain and energy is now stimulated to greulcr 
energy, by your tears and entreaties, and 1 
will have it all back." I call at the desolate, 
late residence of a man who yesterday was 
well-to-do; I hear him curse a system that 
would rob him of his comforts and home he 
had earned by a life-time toil, and give it to- 
a street loafer, whom he had passed every 
morning on the corner, as he went to his 
work, and he says, " I'll have it back." And 
I go down the street and meet a man, and he 
says, "Sir, I am hungry, I have nothing to 
eat, and I have no way of getting anything 
to eat. Won't you give me something to 
eat?" I say, "Why, certainly not, you are 
just as well off as I am. You got your divvy 
yesterday the same as I did." He says, 
" True, I did, but I only got the one five- 
hundredth interest in a former rich man's 
house, and I can't eat that, and here I am 
starving." I tell him, " I heard that ex-rich 
man's wife and children crying about sa 
many people being in their house. I expect 
they have some bread, they might give him 



Pl.ATX V,'01iT)-< TO TUK AMKiilCAN l'j:oP!.E. 



some of it, perhaps, for bis interest in the 
liOHse." He piits energy into liis movement, 
and jxocs on around the owner. I pass on a 
little further and come to a fine brown stone 
building, and I hear weird strains of discor- 
dant music witliin, and ask a gentleman what 
this is, and he tells me, "^That building under 
the Republic three days ago, belonged to the 
Tnei'chant prince of the city. In the divide 
yesterday it fell to a gang of gamblers, and 
that it is now a gamblers' den ; over a thous- 
and men lost all they had there last night 
and are now penniless?" I cross the street 
and go up on the avenue, and I meet a great 
crowd of honest, rugged men, and I ask 
what are all these men doing here ? And 
I am told by one of the crowd, "We have 
nothing to do, and we have come here to 
discuss the matter. No one seems to want 
to hire us, and have nothing to pay us with 
if they did." Well, I say, what have we 
any need of work now, we are all equal, we 
are just as well off as anybody ; why should 
we work for anybody ? The spokesman for 
the crowd replies, "We are skilled work- 
men, we live by our labor and skill. The 



iS Pi>ATN \V()!;i)s TO TiTi'; AAn:nir'Ax Pkopi.e. 



property distributed to us is of no practica! 
value to us. We need food and clothing for 
ourselves and our families. Our joint in- 
terests in houses and mills, and ships and 
buildings, and lots, does us no good. We 
want employment at our trades, and com- 
pensation for our labor, that we may go to 
the markets and supply our wants. But no 
one Avill empioy us, and none have capital to- 
pay us if they did employ us. Something 
must be done." 

I pass the crowd and return to the palace 
where I saw the ex-rich man and his family 
in such trouble, and I find them sitting on 
the front porch smiling. I enter the gate 
and ask what means all this tranquility and 
composure. '^Well," says the man, "one 
fellow came here hungry and offered to trade 
me his interest in the bouse for his supper. 
I thought of Jacob and Esau and I thought 
H would be a good trade, I representing 
Jacob, and I told him I would trade him my: 
supper for his interest. A lot more fellows 
came out in the yard where Ave were talking 
and said they didn't care much for a iittb 
interest in this big house, and they couldn't 



Ti.Aix W'.)]:t^- to TifF. AMiiiiirAN Fkopi.e. 



'get along in such a crowd, and if T would 
give them the Fame kind of a bargain I had 
-given the other fellow^ I could have all their 
interests. I consulted my wife and children 
and they all said vre would all do without 
i5iupper and trade what provisions we had for 
their interests in the house, and so we traded, 
and they have all got their suppers and gone, 
and we are again the owm^rs of our house." 

I couldn't help think of that scripture 
Avhich says, the Lord helps the man who 
dielps himself. 

While I yet tarried looking rather curiously 
at the man who had become again so sud- 
denly comparatively rich, the gate swings 
open and a cliild approaches. She seems to 
recognize the rich man, and says, "Good sii, 
I come to ask you for charity. My poor 
father was a drunkard ; bad men allured him 

to the gambler's deii on street, they got 

liini intoxicated, then robbed him of all the 
property he had, and then there was trouble 
in the den amongst the crowd, and my poor 
papa was killed. Mamma and I and tlu,^ 
^baby are hungry and homeless and have no 
}place to go. I know^ you are a good ma::. 



GO Plain \V(3i:ds to the AAfEinoAN Peopt.k. 

.'ind always help the poor. Good sir, please 
help ii«." The man sayy in rejily : '' I can- 
not help you, I nsed to help the poor hut 
they took all my property and means aR-i 
divided it amongst them, and yesterday I 
was as poor a man as there v, as in all ti c 
land, and everybody was just as well oil m*- 
I was. When they took my property llity 
took my means of c/iarUt/, and I swdc- I 
never would know charity any more. 1 am 
sorry for j^ou, little, girl, and your poor niaiiii- 
ma and the little babe ; but your i'ather \v;i« 
«^qual with me yesterday, aiid his wife aul 
children were happier than mine. I[ le 
would not provide for you I will noi\ -3 
begone." As the child trembles whh ere >- 
rion, she tries to plead, and through her f^obs 
I hear her say, "Then if you will not]Kl]> u- 
we must starve." And he ansAvers, "In a 
ixovernment where all are e<jual there is !;o 
< hariti/. I must take care of my own." The 
rJiUd retraces her steps through the gate -w.^ 
down the street : and I say, is itpossibh^ lh;U 
people will le starving, and haggard want 
will be begging, and innocent children ami 
be]j)Ies,s women will be weeping in destitii- 



Plain \V<!f;i>s to thk Amkuk-a.n ricriru:. I'.l. 



tion and want, ^o soon after an e((nal divis- 
ion of propertj- ; and i.s there thus created, 
by reason of tbaL division, sncb an "impass- 
able gulf tix-ed"' between the unfortnnate 
poor and the '' better-to-do," and is it true 
tbat charity has here no more a dwelling 
p.lace ? He «ays, -• It is even so.'' 

With what 1 have witnessed, I am eon- 
vineed that tiio e<]ua1 division of property 
theory would not do for civilized life, and 
that it Avould resnlt most disastrously to the 
whole people. 

A friend >aid to me : '• You domt under- 
stand the theory of this new systera of 
finance. Ii is intended that capital shall ex- 
ist in aggregation for all purposes, but the 
intention is that all the people shall share 
alike in the benefits of it. It is the inten- 
tion to operate all the railroads, telegraphs, 
ships, mills, printing |>resses, shops and 
farms. It is the intention to change the 
possession of capital ; to take it from indi- 
viduals and put it in the possession of the 
government to be used for the benefit of all 
the people. Then all the unfortunate people 
will be taken care of by the Government ; 



^ \V(;i:i>s TO -ill.: A:i..:.iCA:> Vi 



the liiiiigry will bo fed, tl'.e naked clothed, 
the deaf and dumb and blind will all be cared 
ioT. The starving will not depend on the 
charity of the rich, the Government will feed 
them. The f^ick v.'ill be cared for, and help- 
less want will no more depend upon rapa- 
cious greed for charit3^" Well, I say that is 
a delightfid theory, but how will it work in 
practice? ilow is the govern ment going to 
do all these things? The property of the 
nation is now divided up amongst the peo- 
ple; all the capital tbere is is in their liands. 
Ilow is the government to get the capital to 
do all these things with? '^Wcll,'' he says, 
"the government is all-powerful ; it can do 
anything. The government will take suffi- 
cient capital to run the machiner}- of the 
government." Will the government take 
from us all as much of our property as it 
needs to run the wdiole machinery of the 
whole country? He says, "It will — cer- 
tainly." What will the government give us 
for the property it takes from us? "Noth- 
infy at all. The government orily acts as a 
trustee for the benefit of the people." Will 
the government control everything, I ask ? 



Plain Wonns to tiik A.Mi:]:irA:N- ri'.cri.K. (\3 

''Certainly," says my friend. And who is 
the govorninent, I ask? "Well, sir," says 
ray friend, "tlie government — the goveni- 
raent is the government." Well, 1 say, bow 
will the government get the means to con- 
tinue to keep iall those people you have 
spoken of and carry on the business you 
have mentioned? He says, "Peo[)le will be 
taxed sutiicient to pay all expenses — iii oilier 
words, the government will carry on all tlie 
business of the country, and, after paying 
the expcn-es, the surplus product frum all 
sources will belong to the people." Then 
the people ha^'e to suppoi't the government 
first? lie says, -'Most assuredly." And 
what kind of a govern.meut do you call this, 
Task? And he says, "This is a government 
of equality; a government for all the 
people." 

Well, I say, some people ai'e indiisti':<Mis 
and thrifty and others are indolent and 
thriftless. Some are temperate and econorn- 
cal, others ar<' intemperate and Vvasteful. 
Some make money and save it and invest it 
and aL-cumulate wealth, others make but 
little money and they s|)end what they get 



Gi ri.Aix AV«>!:d!^ to 1]]-: Amkhican People. 

iniiuliciousiv or foolishly and tbev grow 
poorer and poorer, flow are you going to 
manage tbis condition of affairs on tbe the- 
ory of eqnality? lie says, '• I will tell yon. 
There will be law5« enacted that no man 
shall own at any one time more than a cer- 
tain amount of pr^^perty — say $2000. All 
lie accumulates oyer that the government 
will take into its treasury," What ! the 
goyerment confiscate private property that 
a man has honestly earned? " Xo, no," 
says be, "not co^*fiscc(fe it, but just take 
it ; take it of necessity. You see," he con- 
tinues, "the government will re(piire just so 
much money to run_ tbe business of tlie 
country and the expenses of tbe government. 
The entire wealth of the fountry is only so 
much. The production can only be about 
so much. Now the government must be 
supported, and it is wholly immaterial to 
the governmeat whether sixty-fiye millions 
of people of equal financial ability support 
the government, or whether five thousand 
who own the property support it, and so if 
a few fellows get hold of the property they 
will have to pay just so much more to sup- 



Plains \\'oi:i>,s to the Ameimcax PEOi'LE. 65 

port the government." Well, I say I can't 
see but one difference between this new 
form of government and that old democratic 
form that Washington and iVdaras and Jef- 
ferson and Lincoln, and Harrison and Cleve- 
land had. ''And what is that difference?" 
he asks. Well, I say, the government they 
had declared " all men were created equal; 
that the government derived its just powers 
from the governed ; that the government 
was a government of the people, for the 
people and by the people ; that the iirst 
duty of the citizen Avas to sustain his 
country and maintain the government and 
the laws, and that in return for this the 
government guaranteed to every such citi- 
zen life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
piness and protection of his person and 
property. Now this new government claims 
first that the people shall support it, just 
like the old one. But it don't agree to 
do anything for the governed. It don't 
agree to protect the citizen in his^ life 
and property ; in fact it puts an embargo 
on industry, by limiting' the amount a man 
shall acquire and possess, and makes indus-- 



66 Plain Words to the American People. 

try, beyond a certain limits a crime, and 
confiscation the punishment ; while it fosters 
indolence and justifies the profligate. I be- 
lieve I like the old Republic the best. 

The people who owned property paid taxes 
on it to support the old government, and so 
you say they must do the same thing under 
the new. I see no advantage to the indus- 
trious in that ; and if the profligate, lazy 
and vicious are to be supported by this new 
government, it seems to me that it is a gov- 
ernment that takes from industry its earn- 
ings and endows laziness with a bounty. 

But, I say to my friend, will you answer 
me one more question about this new sys- 
tem ? He says, "I will." Well, now, you 
intend to have railroads and such things 
under this new system, don't you? ''Yes, 
sir." Well, you will have to have the roads 
kept up by strong day laborers and "section 
men," won't you? "l\s, sir." W^ell, you 
will have to have educated men for various 
])ositions, won't yon? You will have to 
have "train dispatchers" who will sit up all 
through the long nights and keep in their 
minds where every train is on the sys- 



PLAl>i WOKDS TO THE AmERICAX PeOPLE. G7 

tern, at every moment of time, and com- 
municate that information all along the 
line, and give such orders as may be necessary 
to avoid collisions and to protect the lives of 
passengers, won't you ? " Oh ! yes," he says, 
"we shall have to have all these men." Well, 
now, don't you think that the train dispatch- 
ers, filling such responsible positions and 
doing such work, are entitled to receive more 
wages than the section men? *'0h, yes," 
says ray friend, "we must always pay men 
according as their qualifications entitle 
them, else we understand our race would 
degenerate, and finally relapse into a state of 
lethargy from which it would take gener- 
ations to arouse it." Well, then, said I, 
will not the train dispatchers accumulate 
wealth faster than the section men, and if 
they are economical, won't they sooner reach 
the limit allowed by law, and then all over 
that will be taken by the Government ? 
*' Yes," said he, "I think it could not be 
otherwise." Will you now tell me how this 
new government proposes to imbue its 
citizens with ambition to aspire to places of 
trust and great responsibility, and to educate 



68 Plain Words to the American People. 

and qualify themselves for siicli places, and 
then to fill thein after they are qualified, if, 
by reason of so doing, they are not allowed 
to enjoy and possess the property they ac- 
cumulate, and by reason of the government 
taking their accumulations over the pre- 
scribed limit, the burden of supporting the 
government rests entirely on such citizens ? 
He answers me, "I have heard it said, 'A 
fool can ask a question that a smart man 
can't answer.' Good-day, sir." 

ANAKCIIY. 

Tt is not my ])urpose here to enter into a 
discussion of tilt' tljreo diiTfrent forms of 
esial'lishcd goYernaioiit wlVicii have been 
tried and tested by the Innnan rare during 
the past ages ; whether Monarchy, Aristoc- 
racy or Democracy is the best and safest 
form ; but rather to consider the subject of 
government, stable, just and strong, as 
against tumult, change, uncertainty and 
experiment. Althongli blntant anarchy is 
abroad in the world, opposed to all law, all 
government, all religion, all society, all pro- 
gress, all hope, all future, all industry, all 



Plain Words to the American People. 69 

wealth, all civilized life, every thing sacred 
and humane, and defiant of God, Himself — 
still it is certainly not necessary at this age 
of the world for mankind to consider such 
pernicious errantry as any other than the 
common enemy of mankind in all states, 
conditions, climes and countries. It is the 
doctrine which leads to the triumph of the 
enemy of the race, just as the Italian who 
one day found a man in his power that he 
did not like, lifted his dagger over the 
heart, of his victim and said, "Now, sir, I 
will spare your life only upon condition that 
you, here and now, abjure your religion of 
Jesus Christ!" The man said, "I swear I 
abjure." "Now," exclaimed the revengeful 
assassin, as he plunged his dagger into the 
heart of his victim, "I have sweet revenge, 
for I have now killed both body and soul ! " 
Anarchy is the foe of all civilized life. 
Its errand is to strike down all forms of 
government and law. Human life is value- 
less in its estimation and the wise and the 
just fall pierced to the heart by its dagger. 
The recognized heads of government are 
stricken down by its murderous hand, with- 



70 Plain Words to the American People. 

out excuse of provocation, the hope of 
reward, or the "sweet coDSolation of re- 
venge." It is the enemj'- of the hinnaii race, 
which has no patriotism but destruction ; 
no religion but assassination ; no future but 
night ; no hope but chaos ; no country but 
hell, and no friend but the devil. 

LIBERTY. 

Of course, everybody understands that all 
rules of society and all laws, whether national 
or local, are pu»ely artificial, and that they 
are all an infringemei t upon the absolute 
and natural rights of the individual. The 
structure of ail government is upon the 
basic principle of "the wants and the fears 
of individuals." And when law is estab- 
lished by society, for the government of 
that societ}^, every individual who becomes 
a member of that society surrenders his ab- 
solute rights as the price of the relative 
rights which he receives from every other 
member of that society. Man has only 
absolute rights in a state of nature; under 
any system of government he has only rela- 
tive rights, and they are such as the members 



Plain Woeds to the American People. 71 



of that society prescribe. A well ordered 
policy of goveriiEQent recognizes certaiu 
rights, which, without society, would be 
absolute. Such, for instance, as the Declar- 
ation of Indej^endence of the United States, 
that "all men are created equal, that they 
are endowed by their Creator w^ith certain 
inalienable rights ; that among tJiese are life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And 
yet, although recognizing these as %nalieiiabl% 
still they are abridged by the very laws 
which are constructed upon so grand a con- 
stitution. It could not be otherwise, under 
our system of government, and as our system 
of government is the best thus far ever estab- 
lished by man, it follows, that the liberality 
of our laws towards all men's natural and 
absolute rights, are the best of any system 
of law^s ever enacted. But our laws, liberal 
as they are, are nevertheless an abridgment 
upon man's absolute rights. All human 
laws are environments, which the common 
consent of the governed or the discretion, of 
kings, have placed upon the conduct of man- 
kind. Our laws in the United States are 
such as %oe have made, and thereby declared 



73 P1.AIN WoliDS TO THE AmEKICAN PeOPI.E. 

our willingness to be governed by. But, 
although our Constitution declares the right 
of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness" to be "■inalienable'''' to all men, still 
we limit these rights within a certain restric- 
tion. A man has a right to '■'-life'''' under 
the government and laws of the country, but 
he may forfeit his life to society as the 
penalty for the infraction of some of the 
laws. So, while life is recognized as an 
inalienable right, still it is not held to be an 
unforfeitable right, and a man may, by his 
own act, as a member of society, lose an in- 
alienable right, which by law he is declared 
to have. So, liberty is declared to be an in- 
alienable right, yet this right, although 
recognized and protected by law, is at the 
same time restricted within certain prescribed 
limits, and is subject always to forfeiture by 
tlie voluntary act of the individual. So, the 
pursuit of /ufpjnness is recognized as an in- 
alienable right, yet it is limited by law, and 
may also be forfeited by the individual. 

AVe should not forget that these rights 
which are declared to bo inalienable are also 
declared to be ^^ endoioecV by the Creator, 



Plain Wokds to the American People. '?3 

It is an endoioment only, by the Creator, and 
we may forfeit our rights to the possession 
of the endowment, or may throw it away as 
any other endowment. Now this endow- 
ment, may be enjoyed by us, as members of 
society, organized under law, just so long as 
we enjoy them rigid; whenever wo. convert 
those rights into wrongs, then they cease to 
be individual rights, and become, by opera- 
tion of law, public wrongs. We may enjoy 
life on condition that we live right. We 
may enjoy liberty on condition that Ave do 
not trespass on the rights of others, by a 
too liberal exercise of that right. We may 
enjoy the pursuit of happiness, on condition 
that we do not, in such enjoyment, make 
others mourn. Our individual life, liberty 
and happiness, must partake of that common 
fund which society holds, and which must 
not be exercised by one to the detriment of 
another. 

Man in his natural state, is responsible 
only to his Creator for all his conduct; he 
could slay, kill and eat. The fertile fields 
of nature spread out before him. He might 
journey whither he would and feast upon 



74 Plain Words to the American People. 



whatever he found. And so he did until a 
considerable portion of the • globe was 
peopled by reckless barbarians. And out 
of the nomadic tribes of the East was soci- 
ety formed, and cities built, and homes es- 
tablished and laws enacted as a compromise 
between the strong and the weak; and all 
the absolute rights of all who entered into 
those gathering societies of men were sunk 
into the ocean of community of interest — 
some individuals surrendering a portion of 
their rights for the common good of others, 
who were too weak to maintain tlieirs. And 
never since the first compact of the crudest 
form of society, down through the a^c^cs, has 
any respectable number of [)ersons ever de- 
sired to exchange the blessings and benefits 
of society and law for the fi-st condition of 
brute life enjoyed by man. 

I am of the 023inion that men mistake the 
true idea of liberty — they confound liberty 
with license. 

Liberty, strictly speaking, means only 
freedom from slavery or bondage ; but the 
idea conveyed by the Declaration of Ameri- 
can Independence was, that freedom of body 



Plain Wouds to tue Amekican People. 75 

and mind and tongue, as well, should be 
exercised in matters of citizenship, and tak- 
ing part in the formation and administra- 
tion of government. Hence the freedom of 
speech and press — the riglits of the people, 
fully exercised, in matters of legislation. But 
it must be remembered at all times, that 
this liberty is restricted within limits, com- 
templated by law. It is lil)erty tender law, 
not liberty iDithout law. 

Liberty to go AWierever one will, and to 
pursue whatever calling or profession he 
chooses, does not mean that he is at liberty 
to take up arms against the government. It 
does not mean that he has license to commit 
treason. Liberty of free speech does not 
mean that one has license to make incendiary 
speeches against the (lo^^errnnent, the laws 
and the decisions of estab'islied courts. It 
does not mean that the pres-i has a Ucoise to 
assail the government and incite insurrection 
among the people against the government. 
If any such construction could be placed 
upon that memorable Declaration, then the 
cherished document w^hich has commanded 
the admiration of the world, and been the 



76 Plain Woeds to the Ameiucan People, 

star of hope that has led millions of the 
down-trodden sons and daughters of the race 
across raging seas to a home of equal 
rights, under Ihw^ has been, and is, the 
merest sham and play upon words ever 
practiced by the rhetorician to dupe the 
unwary ; and the venerated names whose 
inspired genius and immortal love for hu- 
manity that framed it, must peri&h from the 
pages of history, and be blotted from the 
memory of man, as those whose services in 
life Avere but sowers of tares in the vast 
fields of human hope, to yield at last a har- 
vest of chaif and confusion, when the toilers 
exj^ected grain and content. 

We must understand that all the liberty 
we have under the rules of civilized life, is 
liberty under law ; that government and 
law are supreme, and that we are children 
endowed with the blessings and benefits 
which that government bestows upon all 
alike, and makes each and every one account- 
able to it, with liberty, only, to do right. 

I believe it is because a great many of our 
foreign population do not understand the 
real meaning of the word, Liberty, that 



Plain Wokds to the AmeiiicAjST People. 77 

makes a great deal of trouble. Those who 
come here from countries whose laws are 
dissimilar to ours, hear always about the 
liberties of the people of the United States, 
and many of them come here with the idea 
that when they get here they are under no 
restraint ; that they can do as they please 
and live as they please, and that everyone's 
judgment as to what his individual rights 
are is the law on that subject. It is difficult 
for us to understand just how hard it is for 
persons to live under a king or a czar till 
forty or fifty years of age, and then move, at 
once, under a form of government with the 
idea of personal liberty impressed upon 
them, and all at once adjust themselves to 
all the forms of law under such a govern- 
ment. It requires tlie exercise of some 
philosophy to reconcile the fact that law is 
liberty, and that "the blessings of liberty" 
are the protections and safeguards of the 
laws. If liberty meant that each individual 
was left to his will and discretion in the 
matters of life and conduct, then chaos 
would be as supreme as at any time in the 
history of the race and there would be 



78 Plain Wokds to the American People. 



neither la^v nor society : the strong would 
destroy the weak ; the vicious would destroy 
the innocent, and the lives and happiness of 
others would be to them the foot-ball with 
which they would amuse themselves ; the 
helpless would be enslaved ; the maimed and 
blind and insane would suffer and perish, 
and every noble, humane and religious im- 
pulse of mankind would die out of the human 
heart; and the temples of worship, of justice 
and of learning would tumble down in one 
common ruin. 

Let us then remember that when we speak 
of human liberty we speak of it as a legal 
liberty, or liberty to do right. 

PRESENT CONDITIONS. 

We are to-day confronted with the most 
complex and dangerous problems that have 
ever threatened the perpetuity of govern- 
ment and well-being of all people. It is true 
that this may seem extravagant language, in 
the face of history, but it is nevertheless 
true. The Revolutionary War seemed at that 
time to absorb the attention of mankind, as 
involving all the interests of human life and 



Pj-Aix WoKDS TO THE Amekican Peopi.e. 79 

hope. The late war seemed at that time to 
involvo every issue that could arise, likely to 
affect this government. The statesmen of 
the world then said, "Upon the issues now 
before the American people, to be settled by 
civil v\-ar, decides for all time the existence 
or non-existence of the government of the 
United States." I fancy myself hap])y in 
the thought that the decision of the sword 
in that awf id crisis decreed that the union of 
the States was mightier than disunion, and 
that the general government was paramount 
to State authority, and that those questions 
are Fettled by that decision as the judgment 
of the court of last resort. And I sincerely 
ho;>e that the patriotism and good judgment 
of tlie Ainerican people shall always be so 
exn-cised that the decision of great national 
questions, settled by grim arbitration of two 
wars, and sanctioned by the intelligence of 
the world, shall not again be called in ques- 
ti.on. 

But there ai'e new questions to be au- 
sweied ; new problems to be solved; new 
conditions to be met; and new troubles to 
be settled; all of which are pregnant with 



80 Plain Words to the American People. 

possibilities equally as alarming as any ever 
presented to the people of this nation. 

The population of this country is enough 
to merit the most careful consideration of 
the statesman as well as of the citizen. No 
other country under the sun has such a 
mixed population. Every nationality of peo- 
ple have their peculiar characteristics ; some 
are distinguished by methods of industry, 
others of the reverse. Some are quiet, easily 
governed, having the most supreme regard 
for the laws of the land, while others are the 
opposite, and require the strictest enforce- 
ment of law to keep them within bounds, 
and even then, insurrections frequently 
break out. It requires more vigorous laws 
with more severe punishment attached to 
violators, for one nationality, than it does 
for another. Staid old Germany requires but 
few laws and a meager police force for the 
government of her people ; while impatient, 
revolutionary France requires vigorous laws 
with guillotine attachments, to maintain her 
place on the map of the world, as a civilized 
nation. The haughty Englishman is as un- 
yielding to the mandates of the law as he is 



Plain Words to the Ameetcax People. 81 

to a decent respect to other people's opinions 
and just rights ; while Italy bursts all bonds 
of restraint and challenges the civilized 
world to duel, at the very thought of law. 
The American plants himself like an impe- 
rial king upon the Declaration of his fathers 
and with the majestic bearing of a lord pro- 
claims, "I am an American citizen." With 
all this mixed purpose as it were, poured 
into one channel, and then stimulated with 
the vigor of a large influx of "St. Patrick's 
Day in the morning, boys," augmented by 
thousands of Poles, Hungarians, Prussians, 
Swedes, Bedouins, Jerusalems, Africans and 
all the different semi-civilized races of all 
the earth, China not excepted ; all these 
thrown together to make one people, mar- 
shalled under one flag, obeying one law, 
swearing allegiance to one government — ^and 
that government made by the suffrage of the 
numerical strength of its population — of 
itself presents a condition sufncient to alarm 
the thoughtful student of the Nation's future. 
Nations may be likened to families upon a' 
large scale. The government of different 
families differs very much in the method of 



82 Plain Words to the American People. 

government, the judgment of the governor 
and the tractability of the governed. One 
family is governed by a despotism with an 
iron rod in the hand of a tyrant. Another 
is by a centralized authority, and the law 
maker and the law executor and interpreter 
are one and the same — the monarch. Un- 
der such systems the children, grow up 
toughened to hardships, and cruelty is 
w^oven into the very fiber of their lives, and 
a mortal fear of the displeasure of the em- 
peror, monarch, tyrant, despot or king, is 
the oidy regard they have for the existence 
of the laws that govern. Another family is 
self governing ; that is, they recognize the 
rights and duties of each other, ^vith respect- 
ful obedience to the will and wish of paren- 
tal authority, nnd bound together by bands 
of kindred, eiKle.irments of family, and 
sacred allegiance of reciprocal affection, and 
an inborn love of natural felicity, the fam- 
ily government rests upon the individual 
members, and according as each discharges 
his or her duties, so is the harmony or dis- 
cord of that family government. jSTow, if 
we take all those families and put them un- 



Plain Words to the Amekican People. 83 

(ler one roof, and establish a democratic 
form of government for the household, 
where the making of the laws, the observ- 
ance of the laws and the enforcement of the 
laws all depend on the members of the 
household, any one who would expect 
anything but confusion, cabal and disintegra- 
tion, must be conceded to be a strong be- 
liever in a return of the days of miracles. 
But just such is the government of the 
United States. Our population is made up of 
the families of the whole world, members of 
which could no longer endure the tyranny of 
the parent stock, and have come here to assert 
their individuality in matters of government. 

The American government stands to-day 
a monument of marvel, witnessing to the 
world that a government can be built 
on the mutual rights of men, and perpetu- 
ated through convulsions and wars by the 
loyalty of a majority of the people, even 
though millions of the population, through 
misguided notions, oppose the measures by 
which it can alone be maintained. 

We frequently become impatient at the 
tardy movement of legislatures, and we 



84 Plain Words to the American People. 

criticise legislators and condemn parties 
because needed legislation is not hastened ; 
and we urge our national Congress to enact 
laws to give relief to the people loitliout 
delay. But w^e do so ill advisedly; for if 
we could consider a moment, we would see 
the inability of Congress to pass laws in any 
great haste, and the danger of doing so if it 
could. We should at all times remember, 
that our people is not only a mixed popula- 
tion, but that our country is vast in extent, 
varied in industries, fertile in fields, rich 
in mines, productive in manufactories, and 
boundless in resources; and that our sixty- 
six millions of mixed population, teemdng 
with coniMcting opinions and interests, arc 
engaged in pushing every industry almost 
known to man, so complicates the interests 
of our people that a certain law which one 
class demands as to its interest, another class 
opposes as detrimental to its interest. And 
the congressman who would secure the pas- 
sage of a law to satisfy his constituency, 
must enlist a majority of all the members to 
secure the passage of the lav/. The mem- 
bers of other districts of the country may bo 



Plain Wokds to the Amejuc.vn People. 85 

bound to their constituency to oppose the 
law proposed, and they may, and do, have 
proposed legislation in the interest of their 
respective localities. Here is an antagonism 
of interests, resulting from different locali- 
ties, different industries and different inter- 
ests of the people. The genius of the legis- 
lator is taxed to devise means to bring to 
his aid the necessary majority to secure the 
passage of his proposed law, and he is met 
by an equal display of talent backed by the 
same potent motive — self interest. Weeks 
and months pass while the Congress consid- 
ers the interests of all the people in the 
passage of a law. Thus we see the imprac- 
ticability of passing any law in great haste. 
Experience has shown, also, the danger of 
haste in the passage of laws, for the laws that 
have been condemned as "venal and vicious 
legislation" have been, almost invariably, 
laws passed in haste to gratify public clamor, 
without sufficient study as to the effects the 
measure would have in the future. 

Then again, there is a censure attached to 
political parties for the passage of certain 
laws, which, at the time of their passage, 



86 Plain Words to the American People. 

seemed to be all. right enough, but in years 
afterwards under changed conditions, it 
seems that the particular law was not the 
best which human wnsdom could suggest, 
looking at it from the position of years of 
experiment, and so wa declare that the 
political party which enacted that law is un- 
worthy the confidence of the people, etc. 

It is somehow strange that we, as a peo- 
ple, are so blinded by prejudice, or warped 
by political affiliations, that we never can 
see the patriot motive behind a law that 
proves to be not best, nor an honest legisla- 
tor in the party that doesn't see things as 
we do, and so are apt to adopt radical reso- 
lutions, and sometimes do radically wrong 
things to show our indignation towards 
those who have served us in the capacity of 
legislators, perhaps with a conscientious de- 
sire for our best interests, and to the very 
best of their ability. 

We lose sight of the fact that with such 
diversity of interest among our people, it is 
almost impossible to enact a law by uni- 
versal consent. Almost, if not all our laws 
are compromise laws. One industry wants 



Plain Words to the American People. 87 

to be protected by a high tariff, and another 
wants no tariff at all. The sheep raiser 
wants tariff on wool, and the wheat grower 
wants it on wheat. The poor say,. "Stacl? 
the tariff on silks and diamonds," and the 
rich say, "Equalize it on all articles." 
These and a thousand other interests have 
to be considered in the passage of a tariff* 
law. Is it any wonder, then, that the tariff" 
is being forever " tinkered with ? " "The 
tariff" will be a "bone of contentioii " in 
American politics just as long as Aniei-ica 
continues to hold within her borders all the 
industries and conflicting interests of multi- 
plied millions of people. So it is with 
nearly all our laws ; they are passed only by 
majorities, and the majority is fi-equentiy 
secured by concessions, compromises and 
bargains, as "You vote for my bill, and I 
will vote for yours," or "You ameiid or 
modify your proposed law so and so, and 
then we w^ill vote for its passage." It is an 
enduring monument to the patriotism and 
intelligence of the American Congress, that 
so many wise and good laws have been 
passed, and so vtry feiG bad laws have ever 



88 Plain Words to the American People. 

been spread upon the statutes. It is the 
triumphant glory of our institutions that 
they stand enduring creatures born of con- 
flict and sanctioned only by a majority. 

While our laws are compromise laws, they 
have within them that essential strength 
which recommends them to the people for 
adoption and enforcement. They are not 
radical or extreme. The counter-balancing 
interests and conflicting opinions that must 
be consulted and harmonize in the passage 
of any law, as a rule, so frames the law, that 
extreme measures rarely ever receive the 
sanction of legislative enactment. There is, 
once in a great while, perhaps, an apparent 
mental aberration among the people which 
seems to threaten radicalism, and as a result, 
a species of " class legislation," or " crank 
legislation," so called, results. 

But such measures are local and transitory 
and are soon corrected by repeal or amend- 
ment. The great body of our people have 
such an inborn love for our institutions, and 
veneration for the grand work of our fore 
fathers, and such sacred interests for the 
future of our children, that they hasten to 



__J^i^f^JfJVoRDS^ro THE AmekicAxN People. 89 

correct mistakes in legislation, when they 
are satisfied mistakes have been made. Fal- 
libility is written on all the works of man 
and he is too hyj^ercritical who expects ab- 
solute wisdom in every enactment of a great 
body of laws, which are designed to cover 
all conditions and interests of the people of 
a state or the nation. 

As the great planet in his swift journoy 
around the sun, ever onward, yet oscil]atin<r 
from side to side of his supernal highway" 
keeping the plane of his equi-distant radius 
between the two extreme influences of cen- 
tripetal and centrifugal forces— so with the 
great body of the American people. It may 
be swayed at times, by attracting influences 
toward extremes, but it has never yet left the 
broad highway of a nation's onward march 
and I have faith to believe it never will. ' 
It is not to be expected, then, that all law 
will suit all persons, or all classes of per- 



sons 



It is fair to presume that gamblers reo-rot 
there is law which makes gambling a misde- 
meanor. The whiskey dealer would rather 
there was no law governing the sale of 



90 Plain Words to the American People. 

liquors. Railroad companies would prefer 
not to liave a law limiting them to a three- 
ccnt-a-niile rate for carrying passengers ; they 
would rather have it so they could charge 
ten cents a mile, and if they were not limited 
by law I have" no doubt they would do it. 

Thieves are sad because there is a law 
which makes the taking of other people's 
property, larceny. 

Thus it may be seen that there is scarcely 
a law but what some one can find fault with. 
But individual and class interests, and opin- 
ions, must be silent in the presence of the 
law while it remains the laio. A respect for 
the laws which a majority have enacted, is 
the only safeguard of all people and the 
assuraiice of the perpetuation of the govern- 
ment. Every good citizen will respect the 
laws of Ills country, but if he believes any 
of thoiu'to be bad laws he will bestir himself 
to have sucii repealed or amended. 

The purity and goodness of our laws, and 
the enforcement of them, depends on the 
purity and goodness of the people, and if we 
would have good laws and have them faith- 
fully enforced, we must have good citizens to 



Plain Words to the American People. 91 



make the laws and to enforce tbem. Upon 
the intelligence and patriotism of the people 
depends our government and all our institu- 
tions. The quality of our citizens determines 
oar whole political and social system. Our 
legislatures may enact all the wholesome 
laws ever conceived by Solon, Lycurg is, 
and Justinian, but if the people would set 
themselves against the enforcement of them, 
the most sacred institutions of the land 
would crumble to dust under a '* reign of 
terror." 

If the vicious, ignorant and lawless classes 
should ever get the ascendancy in this coun- 
try, then woe-betide the American people, 
and every interest of mankind. Men who 
are now inciting weak men to deeds of vio- 
lence and inculcating revolutionary doctrines 
into the people, would then be " calling for 
the rocks and the mountains to fall on them 
to hide them from the wrath of that day." 
Anarchism, Socialism, Communism, Deism, 

Atheism, and all the other isms would 

hold high carnival in ''Independence Hall" 
on that day, and the glory of a nation 
and the pride of patriots would go out in 



92 Plain Words to the American People. 

darkness of a niglit that would have "neither 
a star nor a morn beyond." 

But is there danger of this ? I say, upon 
certain conditions there is. If every country 
on earth is allowed to unload their paupers 
and criminals on our shores, and this gov- 
ernment takes them in and clothes them with 
the imperial robe of citizenship, and puts the 
ballot in their hands to elect presidents, leg- 
islators, judges, and governors, until they 
have a numerical majority, and the Ameri- 
can born citizens are driven from the shops, 
mills and mines by imported pauper labor, 
until American pride is humbled and patri- 
otism sleeps, and the twin sisters — ignorance 
and v/ickednoss — perch tliomselves on high 
places — then this government and the su- 
premacy of this nation would be no more. 

It is not so much laws we have that 
threaten our destruction, but it is the great 
need of laws we don't have that is hurrying 
U8 on out of our orbit of safety. Laws to 
restrict emigration from without and to 
suppress treason within, are badly needed in 
this country, and have been for years, and 
the political party that is too cowardly to 



Plaix V\\^i:r)S to the aiMERiCAX I'eople. 93 

deal with these issues should be at once 
superseded by some otlier. 

^LA^y■S NEVER ENACTED. 

But there are laws in this country which 
were never enacted by any law-making 
power, nor sanctioned by a majority of the 
people. They seem to have grown up by 
that silent unrebaked principle of toleration 
called custom. They, for the most part, 
sneak oil to the uncultivated corners of the 
fields of action, and like a lot of buzzards 
perch upon an old carcass of "personal 
privilege" (if a digression is pardonable, 
that i:^i one '•^inaiionable right" that buzzards 
have), Liud so tak^^ therii^eiv.'s out of the 
aiiairs of human life, to that extent, liiat 
lav.s of inhibition might be held unconstitu- 
tional. 

It has become a custom for railroad com- 
panies to shower "free passes" into the hands 
of certain classes. Coiigressmen, governors, 
legislators, judges, prosecuting attor-ieys 
and sheriffs, are objects which railroad corn-' 
panics select to endow with their charity. 
These officials are all servants of the people. 



94 Plain Words to the American People. 

and, as such, are the guardians and keepers 
of the people's interests. They are paid 
princely salaries for their services to the 
people, and they owe their untrammeled al- 
legiance and services to them. Why they 
are selected by railroad corporations as ob- 
jects of corporate charity, no one can fail to 
understand. It is a system of implied bribery. 
It is nothing less than an implied contract ; 
one which they dare not ask the law to en- 
force, but one which they expect shall be as 
faithfully fulfilled. Why should senators, 
governors and courts become corporation 
wards ? It has become customary for them 
to do so, and so it is done. Legislatures and 
courts ought not to allow themselves to be 
placed in the position of minions to corpo- 
rations. But as long as they accept such 
special privileges from common carriers, 
they will be open to criticism, although their 
motives and intentions may be pure as snow. 
The system can only be justified on the 
ground that railroad companies have the 
right to carry passengers free of cLarge if 
they desire ; and persons have the right to 
be carried free if they want to — personal 



Plain Wouds to tiik American People. 95 

privileges both ways, even thougl] these per- 
sons happen to be public servants. Although 
this justification raay be technically true, 
there are so many good reasons against it, 
that in the broader view of the subject, it is 
not right. 

Railroad companies are not charitable in- 
stitutions, and their dealings with the public 
are done upon the line of self interest ; no 
motive insj^ires the granting of special favors 
by them, except such as they expect will 
result to their best interests. They are the 
subjects of legislatio.i and law, and their 
motives in putting legibLitures and judges 
under obligations to them, is not hard to 
discover. If such favors are to be bestowed, 
why not grant them to the producers of the 
country, Avho create by their daily toil, the 
freight business of the land ? If any da^^ 
are to have such favors as free transporta- 
tion, the smallest particle of justice would 
say, "give them to the men who produce the 
wealth and supply the roads with the con- 
stant freight business." 

There is no question in the mind of any- 
body, but that the motive on the part of 



90 Pi.AiN V/oi;ds to the Amp]eican People. 

railroad companies in the "pass" system is 
purely selfish and sinister, and intended to 
embargo legislation and judicial decisions. 

It is not in the constitution of man to bo 
wholly insensible to the kind oflices and 
favors of others. He is a Christian who 
returns good for evil ; but he is only a man 
who returns favor for favor. He who has 
pocketed favors from others and then re- 
turned anything but favors, in return, has 
been held up to the scorn and contempt of 
mankind through the ages, as an ingrate. A 
man who accepts a favor is held by the civil- 
ities of life to return it. The purest minded 
man on earth may be unconsciously influ- 
enced by favor or prejudice; and without 
questioning the integrity of man and their 
conscientious regard for their oatbs, the law 
in its wisdom aud vigilant care for the inter- 
ests of the citizens and the public, excludes 
men from the jury box on grounds of favor, 
affection, opinion and circumstance, that 
would show interest ; and eitlier party to the 
suit is given the rig! to further exclude 
from the jury, a certain number, for remote 
reasons, which might intluciicc a vei'dict. 



Plain Woeds to the American People. 97 

Why these provisions of the law ? They 
are safeguards to person and property, and 
intended to put a jury in the box absolutely 
free from bias, prejudice or favoritism. 

With all these wise and salutory provi- 
sions of law, and all the well understood 
amenities of life, what think you of a legis- 
lature which sits to enact laws to control 
railroads, with their pockets full of free 
passes — certificates of special favoritism 
from such corporations ? Is it auy wonder 
that no man can tell what the law is on ''a 
long and short haul," and that it practically 
costs more to ship freight twenty miles than 
it does a hundred ? That discriminations 
between persons and places is practiced 
bodily every day, after all the noise about 
" railroad legislation " ? 

Think of a triumvir court of last resort, 
drawing the judicial ermine around it while 
reclining in an easy chair, and adjusting the 
scales of justice between a railroad company 
and some poor, obscure friendless waif who 
has lost a limb by the criminal carelessness 
or wanton negligence of the corporation. 
How ninch will the annual masses over that 



98 Plain Words to the American People. 

road weigh in the scales of that decision? 
For myself, 1 do not believe that courts or 
legislatures intend to be svv^erved from their 
purpose by these favors ; but it does not 
look just right, and it gives the less fortu- 
nate fellows excuse for the insane speech so 
often uttered : "The legislatures and courts 
are all owned by the corporations." 

There is a very high authority which says 
"Abstain from all appearance of evil," and 
the evil appearance, if not the evil effect, 
can only be avoided by all officials refusing 
to accept passes. Why sliould a senator, who 
draws |5,000 a year for his services from the 
])eople, be carried froo to an 1 from Wash- 
ington and anywhere else he desires to go ? 
Wl)y shouhl tlie sheriffs travel about on 
passes, when the people ]»ay them salaries 
for their services and mileage for the dis- 
taiice they travel. 

The fact is, that the system not only looks 
l}ad, but it is iu fact an unjust discrimination 
beUveen classes and persons and damaging 
to the general public. Whenever a bill is 
introduced to reduce the freight rate or 
passenger rate, railroad companies rush iri 



Plain Words to thS American Peoplk. fi9 

with a great cry that their business cannot 
be carried on at reduced rates ; and they 
attempt to show that the volume of business, 
both passenger and freight, is only so much. 
That their expense for the amount of busi- 
ness is so much, and that a reduction of rates 
must ruin them ; and of course no sane leg- 
islator wants to ruin the railroad system, 
and so the proposed bill fails. But now if 
the legislature would require all the travel 
on 30,000 annual passes, even on one system, 
to be added to the volume of business, it 
would increase it so there would be a little 
money on hand to pay employees, and per- 
haps such a margin, that the rate might be 
reduced to the general public. Then, again, 
if the expense account was overhauled a 
little, it would reveal to legislators facts 
which would aid them largely in their judg- 
ment in the passage of railroad laws. 

A railroad company paying its president 
fifty thousand dollars a year — a salary equal 
to the president of the United States- -and 
paying an army of lawyers annual salaries 
ranging all the way from forty thousand 
dollars down to five thousand dollars ; and 



tlien whining to legislatui'es that their ex= 
penses are so great that they can't stand a 
reduction 1 No wonder the railroad compa- 
nies can't pay the poor bronzed sons of toil 
who shovel on the sections half stooped 
nnder a boiling sun, ten hours a day, for one 
dollar and ten cents, and the company's 
property goes into the hands of a receiver ! 
Such business methods would bankrupt any 
concern—and they ought to. 

Let the people demand the passage of laws 
regulating the rate of freight and passenger 
travel, on a basis of justice to the public, 
and the railroads as well, allowing a reason- 
able profit over expenses, based on business 
principles, and not upon the unbusiness-like 
methods of the carrying one-fourth of the 
passenger travel for nothing, thus reducing 
the income, and then looting the treasury to 
pay salaries all out of reason or sense, to 
make the expense account balance the 
income. 

COMBINES, MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS. 

Combines, Monopolies and Trusts are the 
crying evils of the age. There can be no 



Plain WoROsS to TMfi AiiEUtcaK i'jEOPLfi, lOl 

doubt that corporate greed lias its eVils, 
notwithstanding the fact of the necessity of 
corporate strength in the business enterprise 
of this great country. Combination is the 
principle upon which the business of the 
land is transacted. This is true, not only of 
capital and business enterprise, but it is even 
more so true of labor. There is no more 
powerful combination in the United States 
to-day than the labor unions. And the 
trouble is not in the combinations of them- 
selves, but because the two combines are not 
one. If capital and labor were combined in 
harmony and mutual reciprocal relations 
and understanding, as they are in interest 
and mutual dependence, there would be a 
union which no power could break and 
national prosperity which no disaster could 
retard, and the security of person and prop- 
erty be so well established that such a thing 
as <' money panics" would never be known. 
Industry, trade and commerce would go joy- 
fully forward, 'ministering to the wants of 
man, and our country would be in reality 
the most prosperous and happy in all the 
earth. "Strikes" and "business depression'* 



would be hollow names for parst events, which 
history only would record as the folly of jjast 
ages, to the shame of intelligence and the 
glory of ignorance. 

It is difficult to understand the theory 
upon which labor combines against capital. 
Capital is the natural friend of labor, and 
without it labor would stagger hollow-eyed 
and destitute through the land — like a help- 
less and abandoned youth in the midst of a 
boundless desert, without the maternal solic- 
itude of a Hagar or the miracle of a life- 
saving spring of water. 

But when capital combines and says we 
will only pay so much for certain labor^ it is 
very natural that labor will combine as a 
counterbalancing influence, and say, we will 
have so much for certain work. This is but 
natural, and it must, I think, be conceded 
that it is only fair. But the trouble is, it 
does not stop here. The laboring men of 
our country, by the act of organization, have 
declared their ability to take care of tiieir 
own interests, and if employment in one line 
does notoft'er them what they want, they will 
do somethinc: else which is more remunerative 



Plain Words to the American People. 103 



to them. This independence upon the part 
of labor, logically says to capital: *'Wc 
will take care of ourselves and you can 
do the same." This would place the two 
elements on equally independent grounds, 
each asserting its own ability, and neither 
requiring nor asking the kindly offices of 
otherwise unconcerned or interested friends. 
But labor organizations are made up of 
thousands of individuals, and they gather in 
such a vast fund of mixed sentiment and 
variety of opinion, that it becomes some- 
times difficult to agree upon what is best to 
do, and like any other deliberative assem- 
blies, favoritism, passion or prejudice may 
outweigh judgment, and something be done 
which militates against the organization. 
Numerical strength may place a man in the 
position of president or commander of the 
organization whose qualifications are wholly 
unfit for the position, and some reckless or 
vicious act of his, as the representative, 
may be ruinous to the individuals and also 
to the organization. This may be done in 
many ways. For instance : Politicians 
court the favor of the laborers about election 



304 Plain Words to the Ameiucan People. 



day, and in order to secure the vote of 
a large body of united men, the most avail- 
able method of reaching them is naturally 
through their leader or representative head. 
Overtures are made to him, by whatever 
methods politicians employ, for the vote of 
his organization. And, unless he is a man 
invulnerable to the seductive darts of self- 
interest, he is almost certain to lend the 
influence of his position to the politician or 
party that does the most for him. If a poor 
laboring man should be selected as the 
president of a labor union, and after serv- 
ing a few years, through one or two good- 
sized "strikes," and should then "retire 
from business" with half a million or 
more dollars, it woul I call for explana- 
tion to the question : " How did he make 
it ? " 

The labor organizations are "toadied" to 
by politicians, and sometimes by political 
})arties, and a great deal of cheap oratory is 
indulged in and a great show of "recogni- 
tion" made by "putting a union labor man 
on the ticket," and by other arts equally as 
transparent and which any sane man can see 



Plain WoEiJc lo the American Peotlk. iod 



"was done to catch the vote." These meth- 
ods were not used for the best interests of 
the labor organizations and their individual 
members. They are done for individual 
success or party supremacy, and often suc- 
ceed, to the detriment of labor. 

There is not a greater enemy to labor in 
this country than the demagogue who pan- 
ders to the baser passions of thoughtless 
humanity, and by the art of incendiary 
speech widens the breach between capital 
and labor. He is not my friend who tells 
me I am " a* pauper and a slave, under a 
government controlled by corporations and 
laws enacted and enforced as the ]»rice oF 
perjury and bribery." I will look with a 
liberal degree of circumspection for the mo- 
tive which prompts the man to make such 
speech to me when ho asks me for my vote. 
No man who traduces by wholesale the 
government of his country, and insults the 
majesty of the law, and i?npugns the motives 
of judges, and scoffs at the decisions of 
courts, is either a good citizen or an lionest 
man, and would it^iperil the liberty of every 
toiler on earth for an official position where 



106 Pr<AIN WoiiDS TO THE AMERICAN PEOrLE. 



he miglit loot the public treasury or bargain 
the suffrages of the people. 

Again, labor organizations have suffered 
by reason of an unwise polic}^, which assum- 
e*l a hostile attitude towards all capital, and 
all interests, in many instances. Strikes, 
destruction of property, defiance of law, riot 
and bloodshed occur ; and while capital suf- 
fers, labor suffers more, and great interests 
of the general public suffer in consequence, 
and no considerable number of persons are 
benefited ; and labor has attached to it the 
odium of violence. Industry perishes ; pub- 
lic security is alarmed ; the innocent are 
involved and the law must be invoked to 
quell the disturbance, protect property and 
save life. Vicious and irresponsible persons 
take advantage of conditions during a strike 
and commit deeds of violence, and " the 
strikers" are held accountable for all conse- 
quences of the "strike ;" and this injures the 
organization and the cause of labor. 

But there is yet another cause which is 
more damaging to the cause of organized 
labor than any other, perhaps, and that is, 
its wanton disregard for the rights of other 



Pl.ATX WOKDS TO THE x^MERlCAX PEOriE. 107 



citizens. This we must avoid. ^Fo be a free 
American citizen is the greatest boon of life ; 
as such, we have the right to join labor 
organizations, or not, as we please. No man, 
nor set of men, have the right to say to any 
other man in this country, '-yiju shall join" 
this or that organization. The citizen who 
does not join is entitled to the protection of 
the law while he pursues his vocation of 
labor, just the same as any other. 

But now, one lot of members of some 
organization have a grievance, and they 
"strike." The operator of the business em- 
ploys men to do the Avork the others have 
refused to do ; but here comes the "strikers" 
and declare that "scabs" shall not work. 
This is not legally right, and what is not 
legally right, cannot be maintained under 
any system of law. The law will protect 
the man who refuses to work for another in 
his right as a citizen ; and that same law 
must protect another in the exercise of his 
right to work for the same man if he desires 
to do so. And when a body of men assume 
to prevent by force others who wish to work 
from doing so, it is such an infringement 



108 Plain WoiiDS to the American People. 

upon the personal liberty and rights of sucli 
other persons, that it becomes the first and 
highest duty of the government to protect 
such person or persons in the enjoyment of 
their rights. If authority is resisted, as it 
sometimes is, in such cases, then there is a 
clash between law and labor, brought on by 
aggressive and wrongful acts committed 
under the direction, or with the sanction of 
labor organizations ; and here the cause of 
the working man suffers. 

I do not believe there has ever been a 
"strike" but what has resulted disastrously 
to the cause of labor. I am quite certain 
that all of them together have injured the 
men who do the actual work more than they 
have benefited them. Many times, doubt- 
less, there was a real grievance, and the ac- 
tion of "striking" was justifiable and per- 
haps successful in accomplishing the desired 
effect. But, on the other hand, there have 
been many "strikes" which were not the 
result of any real grievance, suffered by the 
body of workers, but some personal matter 
of the leaders with employers, and, prompted 
by sinister motives, a "strike" was ordered, 



Plain Wot^ps to the Amebican People. 109 

and the members of the organization, in 
loyalty to their leader, have gone out and 
left employment at good wages, and when 
they returned, if at all, in many instances 
did so at lower wages than when they 
went out. 

It is unfortunate for labor organizations 
that they put themselves too much at the 
arbitrary disposal of one man. It is not 
wise for a great number of men to submit 
all their iuterests to the direction and capri- 
cious whim of any one man, whether he be 
an Irons or a Debs. No American citizen 
should ever sink his individual rights as 
such, into any organization where he could 
be used, as an atom in a great mass, at the 
dictation of one man, to carry out his will. 
" Sympathetic strikes" are too frequent, and 
consequences too alarming, of late, to satisfy 
the great majority of American people that 
*' one-man government" is a good thing 
among free men. No citizen should ever 
surrender his independence and individu- 
ality,' or allow himself to be compromised or 
bargained, nor even influenced in his vote, 
by any organization nor upon any pretext. 



110 PlaixNt Words to tue American People. 

That is one thing that every man should 
at all times reserve to himself — how 
he will vote. And there is danger of 
labor organizations being bargained by 
leaders in the matter of suffrage, if the 
members are not alert to their own in- 
terests. 

If we consider the present condition of the 
country we shall see a monument of stupend- 
ous folly. The winter of 93-4 witnessed the 
charitable resources of this country drained 
almost to limit, to feed " the unemployed " 
who had been thrown out of employment by 
the closing down of various industries which 
could not run during the depression of the 
time without great loss and ultimate bank- 
ruptcy. But the winter is scarcely past and 
the " soup houses" closed before we hear of 
another "strike." " Pullman has reduced the 
wages of his employees and refused to ad- 
vance them again," and so the whole country 
goes into a " sympathetic strike." Property 
is destroyed, the law defied, life lost and 
a million of men go out of positions to 
join the " unemployed." The business and 
safety of the public is jeopardized and 



Plain Words to the American People. Ill 



the great mass of people cannot but 
condemn "strikes;" and again labor is in- 
jured. 

Wise counsel and good motives would 
have prompted labor organizations in sym- 
pathy with the Pullman car laborers, to have 
offered them support in their demands, and 
if it could not be adjusted by legal proced- 
ure (which it could liave been), and it was 
determined for the Pullman employees to 
"strike," then let them do so and the sympa- 
thetic brotherhoods sustain them by proper 
financial aid during the troubles. But in- 
ste?.d of that, a lawless, dangerous course 
was adopted, and thousands of men finan- 
cially ruined, who were the friends and 
employers of labor. The one-half of the 
amount of wages the men who went out on a 
strike Avould have earned T>iiile the strike 
lasted, would have adjusted all trouble with 
the Pullman employees, and left their condi- 
tion and the cause of labor much better than 
it now is. 

But there is another thing that makes 
trouble with the laborers in this country and 
that is personal habits. 



113 PLA.IN WOKDS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
PERSONAL HABITS. 

It is not my purpose here to enter into a 
dissertation on any line of living, but such 
as naturally come within the purview of a 
brief sketch of the troubles which beset the 
laboring people of the land. And whatever 
may be said or written on this subject must 
apply only to such as have the misfortune 
to be so aiilicted. It is a well known fact, 
that many of the best skilled workmen and 
mechanics in all the trades are addicted to 
the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors. 
This is more so true of the class of people 
who work in the mines, and like laborers. 
It is a great misfortune to any man who has 
become a slave to intemperance. It affects 
him financially, and money spent in this way 
by the laboring man is like the letting of 
innocent blood. It takes his means of living 
from himself and family and gives him no 
return. If his wages are such that he has 
plenty to live upon and administer to all 
their wants, he may truly say "I provide my 
family with all the comforts of life, and if I 
drink it is nobody's business." But if he 



Plain WoiiDs to the American People, 113 

will but think, he will see that what he 
spends for liquor w^ould soon amount to 
quite a sura, which might serve him in some 
time of great need. Suppose sickness preys 
upon him or some member of his family, 
then the fund would prevent possible dis- 
tress ; or if the factory burns, the mill closes 
or the mine shuts down, he is thrown out of 
employment, his wages stop, and if he has 
not a little saved ahead suffering comes, of 
course. 

What is the cause of thirty thousand men, 
without families to support, who are thrown 
out of employment in a day by the closing 
of the silver mines ; the very next day they 
are one vast " army of unemployed " witnout 
money, homes or bread ? What excuse do 
such offer for their condition ? What ac- 
count do they give of the wages they received 
in prosperous times? Saloon keepers and 
gamblers get too much of the laboring men's 
money w^ho yield to the temptation. 

Extravagant expenditure of money by 
some who do not use intoxicating liquors, 
bar them of prosperity. They "live up" 
their wages at high salaries, and when a few 



114 Plain Words to the American People. 

days of idleness come they are " starving," 
as the sensationalist ^YOuld have it. 

We who work at wages of |50 a month or 
$2 to 13 a day, can't expect to live in all the 
style and luxury of the man who is worth 
$50,000 and has an income from his business. 

The fact is, American people are an extrav- 
agant people, and^it is not limited to any 
class either. The day laborer sets a table 
spread with plenty of good food, and in fact 
much more sweetmeats on it than is good 
for any stomach. The bill of fare on the 
toiler's table in America, is better than the 
"middle class" of any other country. This 
is right enough, and I hope it shall always 
be so. But we should be as wise and frugal 
as the squirrel that our old school book used 
to tell us about, who "laid up his winter 
store in the autumn, and although he had a 
house made of nuts, he never ate too much." 

"Live within your income," is the watch- 
word of success. 

It is by no means conceded that the labor- 
ing people in this country are not prosperous 
and happy. On the other hand it is conten- 
ded that nine-tenths of the American work- 



^_^^A1!X WOKVDS TO TIFE A M K flir A X PEOPLE. 115 

ingmeiiare i.rosi.or.ns aiid Ji;,>,j,y. But we 
are accwstoiued to so nnich intemperate talk, 
and thouglit as weJl, t],at we sometimes 
begin to think that we are all -,]owii trodden 
poor." We have fiiends (?) who have told 
us this so long that they re-sem]>Io the fellow 
who won the wager for teilii,.- the biggest 
lio, and thereafter he repeated it so often 
that in old age he told the same tale for the 
truth. 

rULLMAX. 

If a number of our brotliers suffer injus- 
tiee of reduced wages by Pullman, tbev'are 
objects of our sympathy and should be of our 
aid ; but we must not lose sight of all reason 
.and set about to destroy tlie business of the 
whole country, because Pullman has not 
dealt fairly with his employees. Neither 
should we be blind to the fact that there is 
good amidst evil. While ninety one-huii- 
dredths of Pullman's composition is gall 
and the other part greed, it is nevertheless 
true that he is, in spite of himself, to a con- 
siderable degree, the laborers' benefactor 
He employs about four thousand laborers 
who would otherwise swell some other line 



116 Plain Words to the American PEorLE. 

of labor, and doubtless add many recruits to 
the " army of unemployed." Pullman palace 
cars are luxuries which the rich only pay for, 
and Pullman is thus the channel through 
which the rich are made to employ a vast 
army of American laborers, and to pay them 
for their toil ; and thousands of families are 
thus, by the existence of Pullman, supplied. 
Let us not countenance the destruction of 
property and capital, in our name, and thus 
become accessories to the murder of the tra- 
ditional goose that lays the golden egg. 

Let us as co-laborers of America, not be 
blinded by prejudice, deceived by falsehood, 
nor defrauded by knaves. Let us educate, 
labor and trust. Let us be dead to social 
strife and alive to the common good of all. 
Let us not look forever into the darkness, 
but focus our vision on the sun. Let us ask 
no special privileges, demand nothing incom- 
patible with right, and accept nothing not 
sanctioned by patriotism and reason. Let 
us trample upon a hypocrisy which comes 
to us in the garb of friendship, but w^hich 
has, like Harmonides and Aristogiton, hid 
under its myrtle leaves, daggers to stab us 



rjLAm WOKDS TO THE AiMEKICAN PEOPLE. 117 

with. Let lis scorn a system of paternalism 
that would rob us of the liberty God has 
given us, and which has never been limited 
by law, realizing the fact, that to become a 
subject of paternalism, is to become a slave 
to indolence and a prey of vice. Let us 
assert our independence and calculate our 
strength. Let us stand upon our rights as 
American citizens claiming our equality as 
men, and never suifer an insult to be put 
into our faces that we are " paupers and 
down trodden slaves," by those who love us 
only for our votes. 

We wield the scepter of government in 
this land. We make and unmake presidents, 
senators, legislators, governors and courts. 
If we make mistakes we can correct them. 
The ballot box is the throne of the American 
people. Let those who sow the seed of dis- 
cord among us, be banished, as the bearers 
of evil news. 

Let us join hands and unite in purpose to 
stand for our government, our country, our 
colleges and our schools. 

Let us enact laws that shall exclude un- 
profitable immigration ; that shall control 



118 Plaix Woeds to the American PEorLE. 

profits on invested capital and regulate the 
disordered functions of commerce ; that 
shall arbitrate between the value of labor 
and the profit of capital. 

Let us advocate a system of national 
education for all the or})han and destitute 
children of the nation, with compulsory at- 
tendance ; schools to be established in every 
state by the government, and pupils furnish- 
ed with necessary books, clothing and board, 
under such restrictions as wisdom may from 
time to time suggest; realizing, as we do, 
that upon the education and patriotic loyalty 
of our pe<:)ple depends our government, our 
country and the welfare of our children. 

OUR countky's conditional future. 

History bids us lay our fingers on the lips 
of silent Time, and the dust of sleeping gen- 
erations will be vocalized to warn us of the 
future. Nations, empires and republics, that 
seemed in their day of strength invincible, 
have crumbled under the wheel of time, or 
tottered and fallen before the storm of an 
invading foe, or disintegrated and fallen to 
pieces by internal diseases, which eat out the 



Plain Words to the Amekican People. 119 

heart and sapped the entire system, until all 
the vital energies were gone, and the body 
perished. 

Like the snows, that we have seen mantle 
the earth in succession through many win- 
ters, are gone, so are the governments and 
the generations of past ages. To as the 
former is a matter of recollection, the latter 
but a matter of history. Marble cities, 
carved monuments and magnificent struc- 
tures, once the pride of people and the glory 
of kings, are now but ruins, which speak to 
ug in solemn language of the great achieve- 
ment of man's ambition and genius, in the 
centuries that are gone. The countless mil- 
lions of soldiers that contended on the gory 
fields of the world's battle grounds, surroun- 
ded their sovereigns and with patriotic loy- 
alty, shouted the psean of praise, "Long live 
the king," liave long since joined their sov- 
ereigns in the subterranean vaults beneath 
the sod. Mutability is written upon every 
work of man, and the abiding creations of 
his genius are limited to that which God 
approves. 



130 PjLAIN WOBDS TO THE AmEUICAN PEOrLE. 

Greece rose, flourished and fell, and 
naught of all her glory and grandeur remains 
but the works of her genius which have 
come down through the ages to bless and 
benefit mankind, and to prepare tlio world 
for the reception of that God, which, as a 
nation, she rejected. 

Rome, once the mistress of earth and 
monarch of the sea, styled herself "The 
Eternal City." The world trembled at tl.e 
sound of the names of her Caesars and her 
Scipios. ller chariots thundered along her 
numerous great stone paved ways, laden 
with the spoils of the subdued kingdoms, 
which fell in the march of her legions, and 
her city w^as rich beyond the dreams of 
Croesus. Luxury, learning and pleasure was 
surfeited in her courts, games and gardens. 
But her Salarian gate swung open under the 
blow of Alaric, and the barbarian Goths 
swept through like a mighty avalanche of 
bergs loosened from the gorge in the north- 
ern fields, crashing down through the lower 
seas, which no treaty could retard nor 
power oppose, and Rome — Imperial Rome, 



PLAi:^y WOKUS TO THE AME^vICA^■ PEOPLE. 121 

had not within her treasure houses, gold 
enough to bribe the passion of the Goth, nor 
purchase protection for the virtue of the 
Roman virgins, and her maidens and 
matrons as well were taken by wholesale to 
satiate barbarian lust. 

The trophies of her great campaigns and 
the sacred temples of her gods, could not 
pui-chasc silence of the Gothic trumpets, 
and Imperial Rome, proud mistress of the 
world for eleven hundred and sixty years, 
in one night fell a prey to the licentious 
fury of pagan tribes. Her illustrious and 
pious J^roba was coinpelled to take shelter 
in the woads until a small craft carried her 
away to the coast of Africa, and "Imperial 
Rome '' was but a hollow name. 

The valor of her legions cannot be 
doubted, the learning of her senators cannot 
be questioned, the patriotism of her people 
is admitted, the devotion, loyalty, learning 
and powers of her immortal Cicero shed a 
halo of illustrious glory upon her, which the 
generations of men have honored for more 
than nineteen centuries. But, alas for Rome, 
she also had the Arena, vrhere gladiatorial 



123 Plain Words to the AMEKicAisr PEorLE. 

skill grappled with lion strength, and the 
populace were ecstatic over the triumph of 
either. She had also her Nero whoso gar- 
dens were illuminated b}'- night with the 
burning bodies of Christians, while her citi- 
zens banqueted and her subjects mourned. 
She had also her temple, dedicated "To the 
unknown God," and her priests poured liba- 
tions upon her altars of sovereign cruelty, 
and implacable disregard of human rights, 
and inexorable contempt of the God of 
nations. 

Shall ^ve be as those w^ho " having eyes 
see not, and having ears, hear not," or shall 
Ave take timely w^arning and set our house in 
order. Shall w^e not see in Konie a nation 
as strong, as learned, as proud and as rich as 
our own, and shall we not hear in the shriek 
of her overthrow the mutterings of retribu- 
tive justice ? Shall v^e not pro lit by experi- 
ence and history, and learn from tliera that 
eternal jus lice is constantly balancing her 
scales, weighing out to mankind as much re- 
tribution on one side, as it requires to 
balance his wrongs which he puts into the 
other side of the balances ? The poet has 



Plai>? Wokds to TttE AstEllICA:^? Pjeople. 123 

coached the thouglit in verse, which, as the 
Latin has it, Maltam in pariyj: 

"Long trains of ills may pass unlieetled, ckimb, 
But veu^eaiice is bdiiinl, and justice is to come." 

Ro»ne in her glory carried within her 
gates the captive barbarians as prisoners of 
war, and made thoni slaves, until barbarian 
love for imprisoned kindred, and barbarian 
hate for the h^rds that hehl them there, 
focused upon Rome the pent up fury of that 
wild hate and revenge known and felt only 
in the breast of savages, and when that 
storm of indignation broke, no power could 
stay its ravages. 

She held within her gates but two classes 
of people before her fall, i. <?., citizens and' 
serfs, and although she seemed unconscious 
of the fact, her serfs in toutiny were able to 
demolish her magnificent structures and lay 
in ruins all h^r glory and power, but she did 
not realize that her danger was not all from 
without until she saw her slaves spring np 
as locusts from the ground, and swarm 
through all her streets at the first blare of 
the Scythian trumpet. ' But such it was — 
the judgment day for Rome. 



1'U J'f.xUN WOilOs TO THI^; A\Ui\m('A^ )' 



The parallel may end here, for America 
saw her danger and liberated her slaves. 
But did that remove the consequences that 
naturally follow in the wake of such condi- 
tions ? Turn loose four million nneducated 
slaves with distinction of race and color, 
with memory filled only with recollections 
of bondage, and separation of family ties at 
the auction block, and backs lacerated at the 
whipping post. Throw them without re- 
straint upon the body politic; put into their 
hands the ballot, that mighty scepter of 
the American citizen, and then divine the 
consequences in the next succeeding century. 
Let no surprises spring upon a people who 
have free education, and who stand gazing 
at the open pages of history, and experience 
proving daily its repetition. 

"Self-preservation is the first great law 
of nature," is the conclusion of a noted nat- 
uralist, and has been a household word for 
ages ; but America has not heeded so simple 
a principle as even the lower forms of insect 
and animal life employ. Her affection for the 
oppressed sons of Adam beyond the seas has 
been stimulated at the expense of judgment. 



Plain Wojids to the Ameiuoak P eople. 13a 

until the alarming conditions of the present 
and the shadowed hopes of the future cry 
out to the captain of the ship of state, 
"Watchman, what of the night?" 

A celebrated philanthropist, whose sym- 
pathy went out for all living things, found 
an adder frozen apparently almost to death. 
Moved by his sympathetic impulse, he took 
the creature into his bosom and w^armed it 
into life ; but when he would part company 
with it, he found its deadly fangs fastened 
in his breast: unable to antidote the poison, 
he staggered into the grave — a victim of his 
own folly. 

Cleopatra, that goddess of voluptuous 
beauty and enchantress of kings, conveyed 
to her bosom a bouquet of flowers, but con- 
cealed within them was the deadly asp, and 
Cleopatra was no more. 

Philanthropic America has taken to her 
bosom the most poisonous vipers of the 
earth, in her invitation to all classes of the 
world ; and if she does not dismiss the brood 
before they are fully warmed into life, she 
will find, when too late, dynamite and dagger 
can destroy a nation. 



156 Plaih Words to the American People. 

The goddess of American liberty has taken 
to her bosom the flower of kindred races of 
men ; but with the pure and pleasant flow- 
ers have come the deadly asps to destroy the 
queen, whose empire is liberty and whose 
courtiers all the nations of the earth. 

No national monument can stand against 
dynamite ; no patriotism can withstand its 
blast. The soldier and citizen, alike, fall 
when it is thrown. If America would live, 
anarchy and treason must die. 

Who are they, who, on Haymarket Square, 
mow dovvn the people's guardians with the 
bombs ? Fielding, Schwab, Spies, Lingg, 
and others ! ! 

Who is it that walks to the door of Chi- 
cago's mayor and shoots him down in cold 
blood ? Prendergast ! ! 

Who, weasel-like, creeps through the wall 
that surrounds the nation's president and 
stabs to death, Carnot ? Giovanni Santo!! 

It was also Pianori, Bellemare and Orsini 
who threw the bombs under the imperial 
cortege. 

Who is it that compose the lawless mob 
that destroys property, defies the law and 



Plain Words to the American People. 127 

assaults United States soldiers ? Who are 
they, whose names appear on the dead and 
wounded list among the mob ? Komberg, 
Gajerveski, Kerrschi, Rhineberg, Kocmi- 
iiski and Szecepanski I ! 

If those worthies are members of American 
labor organizations, it is bad for the organ- 
izations ; if they are enfranchised American 
citizens, it is bad for America. If they are 
not American citizens, it is time America 
would protect herself against the invading 
ruffians of the world. 

I have had occasion in the preceding pages 
to refer to the heterogeneous population of 
this country. But with all that, during the 
decades which have passed, it has been dem- 
onstrated that the law-abiding spirit of the 
great mass of the population has been pre- 
dominant, and every nationality within our 
borders have responded loyally to the coun- 
try's call in times of need. But it is w^ithin 
the last thirty years, perhaps, that other 
classes have come : revolutionary France, 
anarchist Italy, and half-civilized barbarous 
Russia have vomited their ungovernable vice 
and crime upon Arnerica until her great cities 



128 Plain Words to the Ameeican People. 

are seething witli a loathsome brood that 
spawn and sputter in the social bog. 

What can America do, with her lax and 
humane laws, their tardy judgments and mer- 
ciful penalties, dealing with born criminals 
that Italy, with her Procrustean beds, and 
Russia, with her tortures and underground 
dungeons, have failed to conquer ? 

Let the American statesman be grave in 
the presence of such imminent peril. Let 
the American laborer look around and see 
the dark waves that are carrying him rapidly 
out to sea. Let the patriot view with alarm 
the incoming tide of that lawless and God- 
less spirit that has, in different ages of the 
world, swept down the proudest and grandest 
nations of the earth. 

Will not America lift up her voice in pro- 
tection of her domestic citizens and say to 
Great Britain, "Send here your self-sustain- 
ing, law-abiding people, if you will, but you 
must take care of your own paupers and 
criminals — I will have no more of them?" 
"If any provide not for his own, and espe- 
cially for those of his own house, he hath 
denied the faith, and is v^iorse than an infidel," 



Plain Words to the Ajmf:rican People. 129 

And if America does not proAdde for her 
own, what promise does infidelity offer ? 

Coursing down the Alps of time, have 
come the raging, foaming torrents of infi- 
delity and atheism, undermining kingdoms 
and sweeping nations into the foaming tide 
of destruction, and whirling the vrreckage of 
empires in wild confusion into one mass of 
ruins, and hurling them on to that judgment- 
seat I'eyond the ken of ujortal vision. 

"Will America l)e admonislied alorig these 
lines ? France liad inscribed on all her 
cemeteries, ''• Deatli is (oi etfrn^l .'<h-e]>.'" It 
was the great "Age of Reason ;" and then 
arose Danton, Mai-at, and Robespierre, public 
wdiolesale ])ntc]iers of men ;ind women ; then 
the Commune : then revolution; then chaos. 
"The fool iiath said in liis heart, there is 
no God.'" 

Nations, as well as Socrates, have drank to 
its dregs the cup of hemlock. But Socrates 
was comi)elled to drink ; nations drank from 
choice. 

From out the intolerance, cruelty, wicked- 
ness and slave]-v of the dark and dreadful 



130 Plain Words to the Amp:rican People. 

past, came a nation, where liberty and the 
rights of man have been boldly proclaimed 
and bravely defended, until the ruins of ages 
have been kindled into life and hope. Super- 
stition has given way to thought. The stake 
and the fagot, and the fires of Smithfield, 
have all gone out under the influence of a 
gospel for the poor — a gospel for the world ; 
a gospel of justice and of judgment. The 
American continent was, by providence, hid- 
den from pagan tyrants until such decrepi- 
tude should steal upon theai that their decrees 
could be ignored by the descendants of the 
Mayflower, and the world taught another* 
lesson which Nebuchadnezzar, Belteshazzarj 
and Pharaoh had been taught : "There is a 
God." 

But, although the little band of patriot 
Christians dedicated this, the first and only 
nation on earth, to God ; and although the 
immortal Washington consecrated it with 
his prayers, and heroes have sanctified it 
with their devotion ; and although the God 
of nations has thus far watched over us, and 
given us victory in war and wealth beyond 



Plain Words to the American People. 131 



calculation — still may we.not, like "degen- 
erate sons of noble sires," perish by our 
folly, and when too late see ''the han^Jwrit- 
ing on the wall," like those of another great 
nation, in the midst of a Bacchanalian revel ? 

Should the American government, as pro- 
jected by oar fathers, ever perish, coming- 
generations will inscribe upon her tombstone, 
"Too much liberty." 

No iron will of despotism is here to be 
obeyed ; no tyrant heel to grind us down ; 
no pope to publish his decree and bid us to 
adhere ; no fettered limbs nor thongs on 
tongues are here to be unloosed ; no patriot's 
grave is here forgot nor deeds of valor lost — 
no power without can ever dim their fame so 
dearly bought. 

Through the long dreary night of the 
primeval centuries, mankind struggled hero- 
ically to break the thraldom into which it 
had fallen ; but the star of hope went out in 
the nocturnal sky of the then known world, 
and humanity seemed lost in despair. Men 
dared not think nor speak their thoughts, no 
matter how sublime the theme, how grand 



133 Plain VVoirns to the Amehican People. 

the thought. A iivw thought was "a wicked 
heresy," and heretics were burned at the 
stake, 4er stilled on tlie rack or mildewed in 
the dungeon. The intolerant spirit of the 
age suppressed the publication of the match- 
less work of Copt^'iiiciis, on "The Revolution 
of the ileaveniy Orbs," for more than thirty 
years. Bruno and Wycliif and Huss were 
burned, and the fallen angel, perched upon 
an ebony throne, swayed his sceptre unre- 
strained over all the dark regions of the 
human soul. The pleasure of Satan and the 
decree of kings thrust down the struggling 
world, and mankind tugged at the weary 
breasts of emaciated and half-conscious 
hope. The storm of unbridled passion had 
formed its currents in supercilious pride, 
blind prejudice, ambitious lust, superstitious 
idolatry and cruel hate, and was sweeping 
the great sea of humanity until its waves 
must be broken by a foreign shore. All the 
old world was a monarchy, ruled by tyrants, 
governed by despots and peopled by slaves ; 
America was a wilderness, but that wilder- 
ness was humanity's last refuge. 



Plain Words to the A^rERicAN People. 133 

In the silent raornliig of that on-coming 
day of human liberty, leligioiis thought 

found the first free utterance in 

"That Cathedral, boundless as our wonder; 

Whose ceaselos lamj.s. tlie snn and moon supply : 
Whoso choir, tho wind and waves; 

Whose orj;-an, tluuidHr; whose dome, the sky." 
Marvelous, indeed, has been the transition 
of the human race since the Pilgrims sang 
the first notes of freedom of Plymouth RocC 
less than three hundred years ago— a space 
so short that it appears Imt a mere speck on 
the dial of time. More has been accom- 
plished for the cause of humanity than in 
all the preceding centuries; not only has 
America been trans'ormed from a wilder- 
ness, nude with savage life and wild in the 
untamed glory of nature, but the dark cav- 
erns of all the earth have been lighted up 
with the inspiring genius of American insti- 
tutions, until the Hres of freedom are ablaze 
on all altars, in all lan<ls. 

From the quiet bowers of nature, where 
the savage and tlie beast came down to 
water at one common lirook and retired to 
the mountains to one common lair, sheltered 



134 Plain Words to the American People. 

by one common canopy, there sprung into 
life a nation, whose simple history is the 
miracle of later ages : a nation, whose in- 
ventive genins has put to shame the fabled 
fancy of mythology ; a nation, whose schol- 
astic didacity has superseded the learning 
of Greece, in that it has moulded fact into 
practical utility, which Homeric fancy only 
fashioned into fabulous imagery ; a nation, 
whose statues of Hermes are free schools, 
endowed colleges, public libraries. Christian 
churches, orphan asylums, national suprem- 
acy, and temples of justice. 

Let the American view w^ith mingled pride 
and gratitude all the institutions of this land 

, projected by our great fathers, and carved 

out of nature by the wisdom and skill of 
American brain and muscle. 

No other nation ever prospered as the 
United States, and none ever contained so 
many free, prosperous and happy people. 
No government ever framed by man offered 
as much protection to its citizens, and re- 
quired so little of them in return. 

The world is now populated ; the conti- 
nents of earth and the islands of the sea are 



k 



Plain Words to the Amehican People. 135 

inhabited. All the forms of government, of 
which the human intellect ever dreamed, 
have been tried and repudiated by man, 
except the republican form. It has met the 
approbation of the brightest and best men 
of the world ; it has commended itself to 
the wisdom of ages ; it has been hailed with 
delight by the millions of the earth's popula- 
tion ; it has justified the courage and immor- 
talized the wisdom of the greatest patriots of 
any age or country ; like a granite shaft, it 
stands at once as the protector of the weak 
and the champion of the strong. *• 

The devotion of the wise, the sacrifice of 
the patriot and the realization of mankind, 
have all testified that this is the acme of 
government : that among all the structures 
ever piled by human hands, it towers majes- 
tically, the trium})h of human ingenuity ; it 
is the last mountain on the western shores of 
Time, and if mankind ever pass beyond it, it 
will go down in the dark ocean of oblivion. 

Bellamy may look backward forever, but 
never in the annals of history will he see 
greater wreckages of human hopes and am- 
bition, and more convulsion and confusion 



136 Plain WoiiDs to the A^rKiiicAN Peopi-e. 

of thought, and a more disordered political, 
iinancial and social condition created by the 
vagaries and chimeras of a novel, than he 
sees just following the advent of " Looking 
Backward." 

" Looking Backward " serves no purpose 
but to warn us against mistakes of the past 
and the vagaries of ilie adventurers who 
would fain turn the tide of stability and 
progress into vast fields of speculation, peo- 
pled by spectres that banquet in the judg- 
ment-hall of Myth and legislate in the pal- 
aces of heated imagination. 

"Looking Backward" will ins])ire no pa- 
triotism for country, no love for lieroes, no 
veneration for the great fathers of liberty, 
whose sacrifices and labors made mankind 
free to think. 

Great Mnsdom, strengthened by all the re- 
sources of man's better- nature, has brought 
us thus far on the great highway of national 
supremacy. Let us be wise in the simplicity 
of faith, to believe that the boon of national 
life — free government— has been bequeathed 
to us a sacred trust for posterity. The pa- 
triot spirits of the generations that were, are 



Plain Wouds to the Ameiiican People. 137 

audible to our inmost souls, pleading that we 
shall not turn our backs upon their patriot 
graves, and face the future with the purpose 
of him who robs the unborn heir. 

Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, instructed 
by dreams and inspired by faith, went for- 
wsLYd to possess their kingdoms. We, in- 
structed by the history and experiments of 
sixty centuries and inspired by hope, move 
forw^ard like the disciplined hosts of Persia 
to assault the ramparts of the future. Pa- 
triotism bids us cross the threshold of past 
experience and swing wide the gates of pearl 
on hinges of gold that open to view a coun- 
try whose fields are fertile; whose "swords 
are beaten into plowshares and spears into 
pruning-hooks : a country, whose colors are 
the stars, the sky and the "bow of promise;" 
whose motto is justice; whose people are kin, 
and whose governor is God. 



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